


More Heart, Less Attack

by LienidQueen



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Figure Skater Clarke, Fluff and Angst, Hockey, Hockey Bro Bellamy, Ice Skating, Slow Burn, The Cutting Edge AU no one asked for, Trope Fluff, the slowest of burns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-03-15 15:27:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 40,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13616235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LienidQueen/pseuds/LienidQueen
Summary: Clarke is a nationally ranked figure skater and she's on the uphill climb, but the death of her father and a serious injury refocuses her life. Her mother masterminds a transition to pairs skating, but she has no one to skate with.Enter Bellamy Blake, a part-time zamboni driver and cutthroat hockey player. He may be Clarke's last hope to stay in the competition, but that doesn't mean she needs to like him.Too bad she's attracted to him anyway.The Cutting Edge AU no one asked for, but I wrote anyway. Blame the Olympics.





	1. The Way Things Used to Be

Clarke’s favorite place in the world was center ice. It wasn’t surprising, considering she’s been plopped there at the age of three and never left. Her parents were skating coaches, and the opportunity to mold the perfect skater had been too tantalizing to pass up. The day she could walk, her mom smiled and yelled at her dad to come look. The day she skated on her own, her mom cried and her dad caught it on video.

Despite their united front to produce the best little figure skater on the planet, they definitely had different styles. Her mother was the drillmaster: every morning, up before dawn, blasting classical music and critiquing her landings to the millimeter. Her father, on the other hand, fostered a love of the art. Clarke’s childhood memories were curled up in her father’s study, watching reels of the great routines and dancing to their music. He would let her stand on his sock-clad toes and glide them up and down the hardwood hallways of their cavernous home. While her mother gave her technique, her father gave her passion.

They were their own team for a long time, Team Griffin. Even with the much later addition of her little sister Madeline, who nobody, least of all her parents, expected, they continued to achieve. Madeline continued to be unexpected, shucking the family artistry of frilly skirts and lutz jumps for the harsh sport of women’s hockey. Clarke’s mother was devastated with that turn of events. Only her father could talk Abby Griffin down after that one. He spun it as a chance to expand the Griffin brand and won the argument-- the rink Clarke’s family owned and operated as part of a continuing effort to train the next greatest figure skaters quickly added youth teams and hockey tournaments to its offerings. With the success of a few groups, full leagues were created, for all ages from the toddling kiddie league to the amateur adult teams.

After that, Clarke’s childhood was comprised of the rink routines: arriving early, drilling until the zamboni cleared rink for hockey practice, high-fiving her little sister as they traded the ice, and returning after schoolwork to skate into the night. Her sister would attend her competitions, waving big signs and whistling too loudly for a nine-year-old, and in return Clarke would stop practicing for a few hours each Saturday to watch Madi (not Madeline, never Madeline) duke it out with her team. Breakfasts were early, after Clarke’s first practice of the day, before Madi went to school. Her father would flip pancakes and waffles, scramble eggs and dance with a spatula, making both daughters grin. Her mother would sit at the end of the counter, perusing the newspaper with the slightest tilt of a grin as she sipped her coffee.

Clarke placed second at nationals when she was seventeen. She stood on the podium with an unreasonably-large bouquet of flowers and a shiny medal, and her whole family hugged her right there on the ice. She was called a rising star, and a sure bet to win nationals next year and go to the Olympics the year after. She gave hundreds of interviews and was spotted at the Boston airport returning home. Everything was going according to her plan.

And then her father died.

* * *

Clarke was at the rink that night. She had been working on her jump sequences, not quite happy with the turn at the end. She got it from her mother, she was told: that unending fight for perfection. She heard her phone ring from the hockey bench on one side and back-skated to the edge of the ice. Clarke did not like having to share ice with hockey players, but the team benches made it easy to access her stuff.

Clarke looked at the screen. Dad. She pulled off her gloves to answer.

“Hey Dad,” she greeted him, seeing her breath crystallize in front of her.

“Hey sweetheart. Are you almost finished?”

“Almost. I’m going to land my quad a couple more times and then cool down.”

“You know it’s Saturday night, right Clarke? Most kids your age are out having fun on a Saturday night.” Clarke could hear the amusement in her father’s voice. He always appreciated her passion for skating, but never quite understood how it eclipsed her life.

“I know, Dad. But I’m not most people my age.”

“Come on, you should have fun!”

“Dad,” Clarke sighed. His insistence that she have fun was the least-fun thing about him.

“I tell you what. Finish up at the rink, and I’ll come drive you home. We’ll get some pizza on the way home and watch some movies. Sound good?”

“Can we get Hawaiian?” Her family couldn’t understand her love of Hawaiian pizza, but she requested it every time. What can she say? She loves pineapple on pizza. Sue her.

Her father laughed. “Sure thing, sweetheart. A Hawaiian pizza just for you. Are you going to be ready in half an hour?”

“Absolutely.”

“Start thinking of movie titles. You’ll have to stop your mother and Madi from watching _Pride and Prejudice_ again.”

Clarke laughed. Madi was going through a phase. One her mother was indulging, but there was only so many times Clarke could watch Kiera Knightley in the rain before she wanted to hurl herself off that cliff in Elizabeth’s dream.

“Okay Dad. See you soon.”

“Love you, sweetheart.” Her father paused.

“Love you too, Dad.” She hung up, smiling. He always waited until she said it.

She just needed to land her quad a couple more times and then be done for the day. Clarke leaned over the boards to set her phone on the bench, but her hand slipped and it fell to the cement. She leaned way over the side, almost bent in half, trying to grab it, when a voice echoed from across the rink.

“Now I get why everyone likes figure skating. Those frilly skirts give a great view.”

Clarke finally grasped her phone, set it on the bench and whipped around, ready to eviscerate whoever just spoke.

“Excuse me?” Clarke looked over but didn’t see him at first.

“I’m just saying. It can’t be for the flapping arms. It’s got to be the short skirts.”

He was sitting by the loading bay, the zamboni prepped to clean the ice for the night. He was tall, with curly black hair and an arched eyebrow, arms crossed and feet kicked up on the boards.

“Who are you?” Clarke asked indignantly. No one spoke about skating that way here. They just didn’t. Figure skating was spoken about with reverence in the Griffin’s rink.

“New zamboni driver. I got the cleanup shift. Wasn’t warned I was going to be cleaning up after royalty.”

“Whatever,” Clarke muttered, rolling her eyes. She turned back to the bleachers. Her last quads of the day were not worth this. She’d make it up tomorrow. When she didn’t have to talk to this asshole.

“Oh, I see. Too much of a princess to talk to the help, huh?” he asked, standing up and kicking his legs over the boards. Clarke noticed he was wearing skates just as he glided over to her. If she wasn’t so annoyed, she would compliment his glide. Too bad she was annoyed.

“I’m not a princess,” she replied, but felt she had lost a bit of her argument. “And you’re not the help.”

“You’re the daughter of the owners and I’m the guy who drives the zamboni.”

“What are you, Heathcliff? It’s a nice chip on your shoulder you got there.”

“I suppose that would make you Catherine Earnshaw in this story? Typical.”

Clarke was surprised. She had never met a guy who read _Wurthering Heights._ Now that she had, she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to meet one again.

“Please. I have no desire to fall madly in love with you.”

“Right back at you, princess,” He shot back.

Clarke clutched her heart. “You wound me. You’ll have to forgive me, however, as I’ve forgotten my fainting couch at home.”

“God forbid you deign to sit upon a bleacher,” the guy responded.

Clarke was done with this charming encounter. “Have a nice night…”

“Bellamy,” he supplied.

“Right. Whatever.” She waved him off and skated to the exit with as much finality as she could manage.

“Night princess,” Bellamy yelled after her, and Clarke heard the zamboni engine catch as it started to make its lazy turns around the ice.

Clarke waited for twenty minutes in the entrance to the Griffin Center, waiting for her dad’s familiar blue Jeep. She scrolled through Instagram while she waited, looking at pictures of her competition friends. Well, she wouldn’t exactly call them friends. Acquaintances, she supposed. She met Raven Reyes at Nationals five years ago when she was a nobody, and they still traded text messages and hugs at tournaments, but Raven lived in North Carolina. It made friendship hard. Raven had posted a throwback to Nationals on her account, a hazy-filtered shot of the podium, with Raven and Clarke on each side in second and third place. She liked it and kept scrolling

After thirty-five minutes, Clarke was worried. She called her dad’s phone, but he didn’t answer. She called her mother, but she said that her dad left twenty minutes ago, so he should be there any minute.

So Clarke waited.

She waited for a full hour, and still no sign of him. With no warning, her mother’s sleek silver car careened into the parking lot. Clarke stood up, legs wobbly from sitting cross-legged in the vestibule for an hour, and hustled out to the car.

“Where’s Dad?” she asked, as she climbed into the passenger seat.

“Your father was hit by a drunk driver going down Park Street. He’s at the hospital now,” her mother answered. There was a stiffness in her tone that worried Clarke. It was the same tone her mother used when she wanted to scream but couldn’t. Clarke noticed Madi in the backseat.

“Is he going to be okay?”

“We don’t know. He’s getting taken into surgery now and the doctors will tell me more when we get there.”

“Okay,” Clarke answered, even though she felt anything but.

* * *

In the end, it was too late. It was too much. The driver had run a red light and hit her dad’s old Jeep in just the right way that there wasn’t much to be done.

When they all arrived at the hospital, a severe looking doctor was waiting for them, scrubs and a surgery cap on. Her mother ran to him, leaving Clarke to hold Madi’s hand.

It was strange to see her mother cry, Clarke thought. In all her life, she had never seen her mother cry. Not when she had cracked her ribs, or when her brother, Uncle David, was diagnosed with cancer, or even when Clarke won second place in Nationals. Clarke was told that when she skated for the first time her mother cried. But Clarke was little then. This was the first time she’d seen it. And it was horrible.

Abby Griffin was made of iron. She was the drillmaster, who competed in pairs figure skating and loved the cutthroat competition so much she skated until she was pregnant and then started coaching. The world had never met someone as fierce as Abby Griffin. But that night she broke.

Clarke had to watch as her mother clung to the wrists of the doctor, crumbling before her very eyes. She watched the doctor mouth the words “I’m very sorry” over and over, but for Clarke, it didn’t quite stick.

It wasn’t until she saw him at the funeral, jovial grin calmed to a quiet smile with the peace of a mortician’s touch, that she understood. The man that gave her passion for skating was gone.


	2. The New Paradigm

_Three Months Later_

The roar of the crowd was incredible. It gave her power. It helped fill the sadness that crept into her chest at the most inopportune times. The swell of the crowd as she took her place on the ice made her feel, just for a moment, like nothing had changed.

As she started her routine, everything was normal. She glided when she needed to glide, jumped when she needed to jump, and everything was technically perfect. Her mother would be proud. Or Abby, as Clarke had taken to calling her mother. She hadn’t been the same since her husband’s death, resembling more of a coach than a mother. So Clarke treated her as such. She called her Abby.

Clarke landed her quad-double combination and flicked her arms out, relishing the cheer from the audience. She skated through until her next jump, when she realized that her routine, while technically perfect, was missing the fire that her father always encouraged from her. It wasn’t surprising, really, that she was just going through the motions without him. But the realization broke her focus, and she pushed too far forward in her landing.

She heard something snap. And she fell right to the ice, like a puppet with cut strings. Her whole leg was in pain. She tried to get up but just collapsed on the ground again. Everything around her seemed to slow, like she was looking through a fish tank. The arena swirled in psychedelic circles, and she was motionless, the pain of her leg and cold of the ice the only things keeping her grounded. Abby rushed the ice to help her and Clarke was glad for a moment. Her mother was showing a motherly concern she hadn’t seen in a while. Like Abby actually gave a shit. Clarke leaned into her arms, feeling comfort in her tight grasp.

Her leg was broken. The doctors kept repeating it, as if she didn’t believe them. The large cast made it all very clear. She was going to be off the ice for four months, something she couldn’t afford. Not with next year’s nationals on the horizon.

Madi kept her busy most of the time. They watched hours and hours of Australian soap operas and the entire Marvel filmography in order. The months had been hard on them, so they mostly curled up under blankets and threw popcorn at the screen. It was a kind of togetherness that didn’t require speaking. There was so much that didn’t need to be said, but still so much hanging in the air. The things left unsaid sat in the room like sticky summer heat. By the end of her sentence (Clarke had taken to calling her healing time her “prison sentence”) she would have gnawed the cast off with her teeth to be free of it.

“Clarke, don’t walk without your crutches!” Abby called from her place at the kitchen counter, not even looking up.

“They’re in my room,” Clarke snapped.

“Well then sit down and Madi can get them for you,” Abby replied.

“Madi’s at school. It’s Wednesday.”

“Oh.” It was as if she hadn’t realized Madi wasn’t here. Hadn’t been here since she left in a clamor this morning. She missed a lot these days. The one thing Abby didn’t miss was an opportunity to critique her eldest daughter. “Hold on then. I’ll get them.”

“It’s fine! I’m already up!” Clarke continued to hobble.

“You’ll scuff the floors.” Of course that was what she was worried about. Since her husband had died, Abby had become obsessive about maintaining the house, keeping things pristine. With how massive the house was it was completely impractical, but there was no talking her down. It was a hostage situation, and it wasn’t as if Clarke was going to blame the house for her mother’s neuroses.

“I saw your crutches in the hallway upstairs, Clarke, so I brought them down.” Clarke sighed internally. Screamed a bit internally as well.

“Thanks, Marcus,” Clarke said, pursing her lips.

Marcus Kane was living with them. And Clarke hated it. When her dad died, they lost a male skating coach, as well as her dad’s hockey coaching expertise. Enter Marcus Kane, a former skating coach-turned-offensive coordinator for the Atlanta Gladiators, who moved up the coast to help Abby out at the Griffin Center. They were old friends from her competition days, and she insisted on Marcus staying in their empty rooms. Clarke did not like it. But Clarke did not have any say in the matter.

It was fine at the beginning, but his arrival coincided with Clarke’s injury, so she associated Marcus with being couch-ridden and him smothering her in the name of bonding. His continually offered assistance grated on someone as normally self-sufficient as Clarke, and his chummy relationship with Abby did not ingratiate him in the least.

Clarke took the crutches from Marcus, but shuffled back to the couch on foot instead of using them. It was only fifty percent out of spite towards her mother. Maybe sixty.

“You have to be more careful around the house, Clarke.”

“It’s only for a few more weeks,” Clarke told Abby, who still hadn’t looked up from her laptop. This had become her favorite pose. Clarke plopped back on the couch and kicked her leg up on the ottoman that had been relocated from the den while she inhabited the couch. “Then I’ll be back to morning drills and evening practice. I’ve got to get my quad back in shape for Regionals.”

“I don’t want you to get your hopes up, Clarke,” Abby said. “You’ve been off the ice for a long time. You shouldn’t expect to be back in competition shape immediately.”

“I know that. I’ll _get_ into competition shape. If I’m going to have any chance, I need to get my quad back as soon as possible. It needs to be perfect.”

“We’ll see,” her mother replied, which Clarke knew from experience was Abby’s way of saying that she didn’t see it happening at all. And Clarke’s success was nothing if not powered out of pure spite.

* * *

The thirtieth time Clarke fell on her ass attempting a triple on the ice since getting her cast off, it was in front of an audience. She didn’t know it at the time. She just went for it one more time, taking a big loop around the north side of the rink before hitting the jump. She didn’t get quite enough air because her left leg isn’t strong enough, so she hit the ice halfway between the second and third turns.

Doubles had been easy to get back in her body, but they were easy anyway. Clarke had been doing doubles for as long as she could remember, but triples were proving harder to accomplish. She knew it had something to do with the muscle atrophy from the cast, and she upped her game in the gym with strength training, but it just wasn’t working. It had been two weeks. She was pushing hard, but she was getting nothing back.

After hitting ice for the thirtieth time, it took Clarke a moment to psych herself back to standing. There was only so much personal humiliation she could take. And then she heard a slow clap.

Logically, Clarke knew that her afternoon practice was almost over, and that the men’s amateur hockey league took the ice next for practice, but she thought she had more time. She thought she could cram at least three more tries in before the hordes descended and dudes in pads slapping each other’s ass and calling each other “bro” overran her hallowed hall of turns and grace. She thought she had more time. But the universe was not on her side this afternoon, as Clarke turned to see who had started the incredibly cliché and antiquated method of mockery.

Four guys in pads, skates, and helmets were standing at the dock, leaning over the boards watching her eat shit over and over again. Fantastic.

“Enjoying the show, gentlemen?” Clarke snarked, succeeding in getting the one in the middle to stop clapping.

“I don’t know, princess. Will you do one of those pretty little turns for us? Remember, arms out and chin up!”

Him. Clarke glowered. Suddenly she was full of energy, skating double time and skidding to a stop right at the boards. A shower of snow hit the boys.

“Charmed, as always, Bellamy.”

“Right back atcha, princess,” he replied. Bellamy took off his helmet and used the opportunity to shake out his mess of curly hair. It was like a damn cologne commercial for Christ’s sake. All he needed was some slow motion and one of those industrial fans. Though Clarke’s mind was doing most of the necessary post-production on its own. She would admit he was pretty hot, but she didn’t have time for pretty boys that knew they were pretty. She shook her head to clear it.

“I still have the ice for another five minutes.” Clarke tried to sound to sound indignant, but she’s pretty sure there was a sprinkle of petulance in her tone that she did not agree to.

“Are we on your ice?”

Clarke didn’t know what to say.

"No…”

“So skate. You’re the one who skated over here instead of doing your pretty twirls. Oh, sorry. Instead of falling on your ass.” The big guy next to him laughed, as if this was an excellent burn.

“It’s not like you could do any better.”

If asked later, Clarke had no idea what on earth made her say that. It could have been the indignation of being mocked for falling on a simple element, one she could do in her sleep six months ago. It could have been the culmination of her annoyance with the entire sport of men’s hockey; an institution that she believed had yet to provide a productive member of society (besides her father, she would suppose). It could have been many reasons. But again, Clarke was motivated a lot by spite. It was mostly spite.

“You’re on, princess,” Bellamy grinned, handing his helmet to one of the shorter guys and hopping easily over the boards and onto the rink.

She expected him to be bad, to mock figure skating’s ridiculous hallmarks: the flippy wrists, the general arm-ography, and the like. To Clarke’s surprise, Bellamy had a certain amount of skill. Not that she would ever, _ever_ admit that.

He was completely unpolished. It was frankly cringe-worthy. His angles were off, his back was all hunched, and there wasn’t a coach on the planet that could fix his footwork. But he still did an impressive set of twizzles, some fancy squat spins, and even did an exaggerated Biellman, grabbing his hockey blade above his head and sighing dramatically. He was mocking her, but doing a damn good job at the same time. Bellamy finished his display and skated back to the edge, bowing left and right as his friends cheered.

Clarke huffed and headed back for center ice. As she skated, she heard the guys start talking behind her.

“Dude, how do you know the prima donna?”

“I made fun of her skimpy skating skirts a couple of months back. She didn’t take it well,” she heard Bellamy respond.

“Damn man. You’ve got the in with the boss’ daughter.”

Bellamy chuckled. “Believe me, Jasper, it’s not worth it. She’s just an uptight ice princess.”

Clarke frowned. The joke was on him. She could be metal if she wanted to be. She charged across the ice, building up momentum. This time she would do it. That would show them.

As soon as she planted her toe pick she knew something had gone wrong. With too much forward speed and not enough rotating force, she flailed sideways and landed in a heap.

 _Fine_ , she thought. _I might as well stay down. I think I live here now. Me and my mortification._

“Hey! Princess! Hey! Are you alright?” Bellamy’s voice careened from the other side of the rink, getting louder as he got closer. He picked her up like she weighed nothing and skated her back to the sidelines, setting her down on the bleachers.

Clarke batted away the hands cupping her face and stood, only a bit wobbly from her thirty one falls. “I’m fine. Get off me.”

“Some thanks I get,” Bellamy grumbled.

“Go hit your rock, Stick Boy,” she said, walking away and rolling her eyes. She grabbed her bag from a nearby bench and put her guards on her blades.

“See you later, princess! Maybe next time you’ll land that jump!”

Clarke didn’t even turn to dignify that with a response. Whoever that Bellamy was, he wasn’t worth it.


	3. This Will Never Work

When Clarke got home, her evening went from bad to worse.

“I’m here!” Clarke yelled, slamming the front door and dropping her keys in the dish. Her skate bag went next to the banister, awaiting its trip upstairs to her room.

“Clarke! We're in the kitchen!” Ugh. Marcus.

Sure enough, as soon as Clarke turned the corner, there was Marcus, apron on and dishtowel over his shoulder like he thought he was Bobby Flay or something. He was at the stove, doing something in a wok, maybe? Clarke wasn’t the best cook. She turned and noticed Abby on her perch at the counter, typing away on her laptop and not looking up, swirling a glass of merlot. It was always merlot.

“Glad you’re here, Clarke. Dinner’s almost ready.” Marcus was really excitable about “family dinners”. Even though, as Clarke would sometimes point out, he wasn’t family and with everyone’s busy schedules they didn’t really _do_ dinner.

“I’m not very hungry,” Clarke started, even though it was a complete lie. Falling on your ass over and over again really built up the appetite. “I was just going to grab a bar and head up to my room—“

“I made fajitas!” Marcus countered, as if this would entice her to stay.

“Isn’t that a wok?” She tried to keep the skepticism out of her voice.

Marcus laughed. “Well, yes. But you can make all kinds of things in a wok these days. Scrambled eggs, mussels, steamed vegetables, hamburgers—“

“Sounds fun. I’m gonna go upstairs, though,” Clarke interrupted, certain that if she didn’t stop him he would just keep naming foods he could make in a wok. Not that she expected an extensive list, but it was already more than she could handle.

“Clarke!” She turned. Her mother had spoken, and actually turned away from her laptop, taking off her reading glasses and staring straight at her. It was one of those gestures that Clarke always saw in movies but thought was incredibly unnecessary, accompanied by an arched eyebrow and pursing of lips. The one that said, “I am disappointed in you”, when you already knew they were.

“What? I’m not hungry.” Clarke’s stomach chose this moment to betray her, letting rip a big growl. Abby arched her brow with the severity of a boarding school headmistress. Now the image was cinematically perfect.

“Marcus worked hard to create dinner for all of us. You’re going to sit and eat it. We eat as a family.”

“And where’s Madi?” Clarke countered, hoping the absence of her sister would negate the familial intentions.

“What?” Madi chose this moment to appear.

“Traitor,” Clarke whispered to her.

“I like fajitas,” Madi returned, unapologetic.

“Excellent,” Abby said, brightening and clasping her hands together. Seriously, it was like a robot had taken over her body.

“Fine.”

Clarke’s father once posited that the quietest time in the universe was when it was early in the morning, before anyone ever woke up. Clarke would wake at four in the morning to get ready for her morning practice, and she and her dad would sit at the counter, silently drinking coffee before heading to the rink to open up. He would maintain that those times of morning were the quietest on the planet. Clarke now knew that was wrong.

The quietest time in existence is when you are forced to eat dinner with your mother, sister, and some random dude your mother likes who thinks he’s becoming part of the family. You could hear a pin drop on that dining table. The only sounds were the clink of glasses when one accidentally hit a plate, and the organic noises of chewing. Dead silence for all the rest. It was exhausting.

“So, Clarke,” Marcus ventured, breaking the silence. “How’s your training going now that you’re back on the ice?”

“Fine,” Clarke replied.

“How’s your quad?” Clarke hesitated. She could always lie. But then again, Abby could always tell when she was lying.

“It’s not quite there yet.” That was the most ambiguous way to say it.

“So you’ve done one, then?” Abby asked.

“Not exactly,” Clarke answered. It felt like the moment in old movies when the hotshot detective would turn the light right into the suspect’s eyes.

“So you haven’t completed one.”

“I’m focusing on my triple right now. Getting it clean and ready.”

“So you’ve completed a triple?”

“Not exactly.” Clarke looked across the table to Madi, whose head was down at her plate. She could tell that Madi was holding back laughter. She would get it later.

“So you haven’t done a triple.”

“Not yet. I haven’t been able to get the right height yet. My leg is still healing.” The disapproval in Abby’s tone made her defensive. Silence fell for a moment.

You know,” her mother started, “Marcus and I were talking this morning.”

“Always a great sign,” Clarke snarked under her breath.

Abby continued without acknowledging it. “Since you’ve been having trouble with you’re your jumps—“

“—Allegedly,” Clarke added, motivated solely by snark at this point.

“—we were trying to think of ways to keep you competitive without needing such demanding elements. Marcus suggested that you try pairs and I agreed it was worth pursuing.”

Clarke was dumbfounded. Gobsmacked. Speechless. If someone were to look up flabbergasted in the dictionary, there would be a picture of her face. Sitting at that dining table, fajita halfway to her mouth, jaw hanging open and staring at her mother.

“Pairs.”

“I think it would solve a lot of your problems with jumps,” Abby added. “Your partner could assist you with the height, and most pairs elements have less impact stress on your legs.”

“You want me to do pairs skating.”

“Yes, Clarke. That’s what I’m saying. You have to think realistically. You won’t get your quad back in time for competition, or even your triple, frankly. Not up to snuff. Regionals are in three months. You need to be smart.”

“As if until now I was acting like a moron, practicing for hours and gym training constantly. You used to call that dedication.”

“When it yields results. But you’re not advancing fast enough. We need to make the switch now, while there’s still time. This way, we can train you in pairs and do the necessary promotions before Regionals.”

Ah, right. Promotions. Abby Griffin was nothing if not media savvy. Clarke paused as something clicked into place.

“Wait a minute. We?”

Abby sputtered for a moment. It was unusual to see her flustered. She was usually so calculating, having planned for every eventuality. At least her daughter could still surprise her.

“Well, you know I met Marcus back in my pairs days,” Abby supplied. “We both competed at nationals and the Olympics for several years. He would be able to assist with coaching the other half of your pair.”

“You’ve already found someone? Do I have any say in the matter?” Clarke was incredulous. In ten minutes, her life had started spinning out of control.

“Of course not,” Abby laughed, as if that would be ridiculous, when in fact, Abby had meddled far worse in the past for the sake of her daughter's career. “We’ve just put out some feelers, seeing who’s in the market for a partner.”

So it was a done deal then. Clarke could hang up her solo skates for good. She was getting partnered off like a woman in the Dark Ages, traded for a cow and three goats. Only on this occasion her partner would most likely be a flaming homosexual. Not homophobic, just a fact. Clarke had been at figure skating competitions her entire life. She knew her odds. Not that it would be a bad thing, thinking of a certain chauvinistic asshole who played hockey and drove the zamboni. A frivolous partner would be preferable to a skating bro. Clarke could tell her mother wasn’t finished, though.

“And?” she prompted.

“Ten of the top skaters are coming to meet you tomorrow afternoon,” Abby said. 

Throw a veil on her and stuff some daisies in her hands, because this was an arranged marriage. Who was she kidding? She would be lucky to go for a cow and three goats. She'd probably only be worth two roosters and an arthritic pig.

Clarke was struck dumb for the second time in five minutes. “Tomorrow?”

Clarke wondered if she would get to meet the pig and roosters before she was traded off. She thought she'd like to name one of the roosters Albert. The pig would be named Ophelia of course. Perhaps she would name the other rooster Marcus.

“We have no time to waste, Clarke,” Abby noted, adopting the tone she used when trying to reason with clients.

This was a nightmare. A complete, unadulterated, inexplicable nightmare. Clarke threw her fajita down in disgust, stood from the table and cleared her plate.

“Clarke,” Abby warned.

“Fine. You’ve already decided I’m going to be subjected to pairs skating. You’ve arranged auditions. We’re doing this. I have absolutely no say in the matter.”

“Clarke Elizabeth!” Abby escalated, and Clarke could hear she had stood from the table by the skid of her chair. Clarke stopped, not turning.

“What?”

There was a pause, as if Abby hadn’t thought through this portion of the argument well enough to know what to say next.

“I think you’ll like it,” was what she settled on. “I loved my years pairs skating.”

And because Clarke is spiteful, and full of shade, she turned her mother’s favorite phrase against her, walking away from the table and heading upstairs for the night.

“We’ll see.”

* * *

It was not going well. Between the guys who were too tall, the ones who were too short (she was short to begin with. Being shorter than Clarke was a feat), and the just plain weird ones, no one was clicking. A guy named Roan got close, but Abby let him go because of his atrocious technique. She told Clarke afterwards that he was Dutch, as if that explained it.

After letting the last applicant go, Clarke was skating loops around the ice, doing fun turns to practice sequences that had fallen out of her repertoire since her accident. Abby was sitting on the home team bench on one side, flipping through her notebook and rubbing her temples.

“I don’t understand it,” she said. “They all came highly recommended. There were some compatibility problems, but mostly it was technique and skillsets.”

“You forget,” Clarke called from the other side of the rink, rolling her eyes, “you have high standards for those things.”

“It’s not unreasonable to expect clean lines and precision, Clarke,” Abby snapped. This was to be expected. Clarke hadn’t spent this much time with her mother since before her injury, and the frustration was getting to her. Clarke on the other hand, was completely calm. She hoped her mother would soon realize what a moronic idea this was and she could return to her days of eating it on the ice until she got her triple back.

“How’s it going, ladies?” Clarke looked over to the loading dock, where Marcus had appeared. He had someone with him, but he was far enough away that even squinting Clarke couldn’t tell who it was.

“Abysmal,” Abby replied, tossing her notes on the bench next to her. “No one has the skills we need, and no one has the chemistry with Clarke.”

“Hey!”

“It’s not your fault, Clarke,” Abby amended. “You can’t force it. But there’s no one else. I’m not sure what else to do.”

“I might be able to help with that, Abby,” Marcus offered. “I’ve seen some skaters in the hockey leagues that—“

“Marcus, no,” Abby cut him off. “Absolutely not. Hockey players are untrainable. They need grace. They need style. They need—“

“Power, strength, and agility? Remember, I used to be a figure skater too. I know what it takes.”

“I know that, but it’s a whole different beast. And we only have three months. The toe pick alone will take a month of re-training.”

“I have one player I think would be a good fit. I’ve seen him do elements on hockey skates. I can only imagine what he could accomplish with your training.”

Clarke snorted, continuing her glide around the ice. He was laying it on thick. Abby must have agreed, because Clarke could hear her “harrumph” from across the ice. Then she spoke.

“All right then, let’s see him,” Abby sighed, and Clarke charged the bench in indignation.

“A hockey player? Seriously? I was already stretching with a pair skate, but a hockey player?” Clarke asked.

“Your welcome is enchanting as always, princess,” Clarke heard from over her shoulder. She turned and huffed.

“Him?” Clarke exclaimed.

“Do you two know each other?” Abby asked, peering over her glasses at her daughter. Clarke chose not to respond, crossing her arms and turning away from Bellamy.

“We’ve shared the ice before. I showed her a couple tricks yesterday,” Bellamy answered, and Clarke glared.

“Excellent,” her mother said, brightening a couple watts. “Let’s see what you can do then.”

Bellamy grinned at Clarke as he passed her to start skating, and Clarke’s eyes narrowed. This stupid, self-righteous… bro, was not going to disrupt her carefully calculated plan to never have to pairs skate. She had worked too hard to be inaccessible and, as one prospective partner had described her, frigid to be undermined by a buffoon. A pretty-boy buffoon, but a moron nonetheless.

Too bad he had skill. He completed a lot of the same tricks as yesterday, but instead of making fun of it, he seemed more determined to succeed. Moves that had seemed dumb yesterday were full of power and intention. Clarke almost believed that he liked doing tricks. Almost. Her mother, however, was impressed, or what passed as impressed in Abigail Griffin’s world.

“That was a nice jump. A little wobbly in the ankle on the landing, but that can be fixed. His lines are a touch sloppy, but I can train that out of him—“

“I thought you said you couldn’t train hockey players,” Marcus teased. “You’re already training him in your head.”

Abby huffed. “ _He’s_ not a hockey player.”

“I beg to differ. He’s been on one of my intramural teams for months.”

“But that is raw skating talent,” Abby insisted. “He just needs to be shaped.”

“He also drives the zamboni,” Clarke added over her shoulder, unimpressed. This could not be happening.

“That’s Bellamy?” Abby asked, mostly to herself. “I’ve just been leaving the checks on the desk for months.

Abby waved the thought off, and stood, calling to Bellamy on the ice. “Excellent. We’ll try some pair work now, to see how you work together.”

“Mom!” Clarke knew she sounded like a child, but she didn’t care. This was ridiculous.

“Clarke, come over here,” Abby instructed, and with a sigh Clarke dutifully followed Abby to center ice. Clarke and Bellamy stood next to each other at a respectable distance, not too close, but not so far as to suggest their inherent loathing. Maybe Clarke was just being dramatic.

“Take hands.” The two of them looked at each other for a moment before reluctantly grabbing each other’s hands. “We’re going to start with an easy sequence. Just skate left, right, left, turn her under, change hands, and dip.”

When her mother explained it like that, it seemed easy. In practice, it was much more difficult. They tried it a few times, and with each attempt one would inevitably get in the other’s way, tripping them up or completely knocking them down. After a particularly rough attempt, Bellamy had left his foot in the path of Clarke’s turnover, tripping her and dropping them both to the ice like a couple of rocks.

Clarke stood quickly, jabbing her finger in Bellamy’s chest. “What were you doing? Your job is to stay out of my way.”

“Out of _your_ way? Your hand was basically on my face.”

“And yet, you must not have seen it, as lo, here it is.” She waved her hand in front of him.

“How about instead of putting your hand in front of my face, you put it down here, where it’s supposed to be?”

“You can’t expect me to skate with him,” she said to her mother. “He has no training, no technique. He’s completely unrefined.”

“Isn’t unrefined and organic trendy right now? Like sugar, and gluten?”

"Unrefined gluten doesn't exist, genius."

"Be that as it may—"

“It’s not a compliment. She’s good, but she’s not a miracle worker. There’s no way you would be able to clean up in three months.”

“I’ll have you know I clean up good. Want to see?”

Clarke sputtered. They had gotten very close during their argument. Bellamy was considerably taller than Clarke, so she was forced to stare upwards with narrowed eyes, or else be staring at his pecs mere inches away. She turned to Abby. To her dismay, she was smiling. At least, Abby’s version of smiling. It was still an unsettling look on her.

Abby and Marcus exchanged a charged glance. Marcus arched an eyebrow.

“Bellamy, where do you live?”

“Amherst, ma’am,” Bellamy replied, and Abby tutted.

“That won’t work. You’ll need to be closer. We have space in our house. You’re very welcome.” Clarke’s head snapped to Abby. Did she just invite Bellamy to move in? First Marcus, now him? Were they supposed to take in every dark-haired stray skater they found?

“I couldn’t possibly—“

“Of course you could,” Abby insisted. “We have plenty of room, and you won’t want to commute at those hours.

“It’s not that. I take care of my sister, and I couldn’t leave her alone. She’s only fifteen, and I’m her guardian—“

“She can stay with us as well,” Abby supplied. “My younger daughter is ten years old and would love to have someone else to have around the house. You must stay with us.”

Clarke stared at her mother. Who was this person, flinging open their doors to fill the house with strangers? She skated over to Abby.

“I am not skating with him. We are completely incompatible.” On that, Clarke was completely certain.

“On the contrary,” Abby replied, “I think you’ll work perfectly.”


	4. Eight and Mr. Fireman

After a bad day at the rink, Clarke liked to stop at the Walgreens and buy a bag of gummy worms and a Dr. Pepper. When she was younger and she couldn’t master a new trick, her dad would make her a Backyard Dessert: chocolate pudding and crushed oreos, with gummy worms sticking out in all directions. He would joke that he dug it from their vegetable garden especially for her, and scream as she ate the heads off the worms, calling her a savage and planning her turn on _Survivor_. As she grew up, the kiddie treat fell out of favor, as most childish things do, but she would still get gummy worms and Pepper after a bad practice.

Today however, she was standing in the checkout line at Walgreens with the mother-of-all-calamity-baskets: a six-pack of Dr. Peppers, the three-pound bag of generic gummy “wrigglers”, extra Advil, and a jumbo bag of Cheeto Puffs. Abby was a grade-A health freak, so such processed snacks were outlawed in the house. That’s not to say that Clarke and Madi didn’t keep Rubbermaid tubs of contraband under their beds for such disastrous occasions. It just meant they had to be sneaky. And tonight was going to be one of those nights.

“Shark Week?” the girl behind her in line asked, surveying the haul.

Clarke laughed wryly. “Something like that.”

“I know it,” the girl replied. “My time of the month, my brother packs the freezer with Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey and stocks up on Lean Cuisine lasagna. It’s all I eat.”

“That’s nice of him.”

“It’s his way of being incredibly over-protective. He can’t stop me from playing hockey, so he mothers me in other ways.”

“You play hockey?” Clarke was surprised. The girl was kind of thin, with long shiny black hair. She would never have thought she was a hockey player. Model, maybe. “My sister plays in a Junior league.”

“Really?” She grew animated, a big grin covering her face. “I’m on the high school team at Griffin Center, in the pre-college league. We’re pretty good. I’m hoping for a scholarship to play college.”

“My sister would love to meet you. She’s only ten, but she’s already so into the sport,” Clarke told her earnestly.

“I’m sure I’ll see her around the Griffin. Coach is always making us run clinics for the younger divisions. Tell her to look for Eight.”

“Eight?” Clarke asked.

“Yeah. It’s my number. And my nickname with the girls.”

At this point Clarke had paid for her basket and ignored the shade thrown from the checkout lady, a little granny whose arms barely reached the counter. _Let her deal with my mother for a whole afternoon_ , Clarke thought.  _Then she might not be quite so salty about my comfort food._

“Well, it was nice meeting you,” Clarke said.

“You too,” Eight replied, moving up to check out. “See you around.”

* * *

 

When Clarke got home, she opened the front door carefully, looking around for signs of her mother. This was the hardest part of smuggling in their contraband snacks: Abby had hearing like a bat and the rustling of junk food packaging was a particularly sensitive frequency. Clarke was careful to not jostle the bag as she toed off her shoes and slipped silently up the staircase, clutching the bag gently like a small child. Only once her Cheetos were safely stashed in her snack tub under her bed did she finally exhale and start to crack the gummy worm bag.

“How were the auditions?”

Clarke about jumped out of her skin. She was so startled that she didn't even open the gummy worms, but fell backwards clutching her chest. But it was only Madi, standing in the doorway cackling.

“Jesus, Madi,” Clarke exclaimed. “You have got to stop doing that.”

Madi took that as her cue to launch herself onto Clarke’s bed, landing with a puffy flop. “Why? It’s funny.”

“Har, har,” Clarke replied.

“Seriously, Clarke, how were they?”

“Seriously, Madi, they were terrible.”

“Who are you stuck with? Is it Roan? That guy Ilian? Please tell me it's Ilian. That Russian guy who always wears face paint during his programs? Mom would have a conniption." Madi laughed again.

Clarke looked at her, eyebrow raised. Madi shrugged.

"What? I was looking at Mom’s files on the counter. They all look so stuck up.” Leave it to Abby Griffin to make dossiers about prospective skating partners on two-day's notice.

“No one from her list,” Clarke told her. “Marcus brought in a guy from his hockey team. She thinks he’s trainable, which is highly suspect.”

“Marcus or the guy?” Clarke snorted and flopped on the bed next to her sister.

“The guy, obviously.”

“Is he really a hockey player?” Madi asked, excited.

“Supposedly,” Clarke responded. "But don't let that sway you. He's the worst."

"I'm Team Clarke all the way," Madi said, pumping her fist in the air. "What else is there to know about your mystery partner?"

“He drives the zamboni at the rink sometimes.”

“Cool! Maybe he’ll let me ride it!”

Clarke rolled her eyes. “Seems unlikely. He’s pretty rude.”

“Yeah, but did you start it?” Madi nudged.

“Not always!” Clarke replied, indignant. She couldn't even count on her sister to be on her side. What was the world coming to?

“In my experience you always start it.”

“How much experience could you have? You’re ten.”

“I am wise for my years,” Madi replied sagely. “Are you going to share those gummies or what?”

Clarke sighed and ripped open the jumbo bag, offering it to Madi. She took a handful and laid back on the bed.

“He’s just so arrogant,” Clarke added, biting the head off a worm. “And he thinks figure skating is dumb.”

“In his defense, it is dumb.”

“Madi,” Clarke whined.

“What?”

Clarke huffed. “He hates figure skating. He told me so yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” Madi perked up like the blatant gossip she was, smelling the scent of drama. That girl lived for _Real Housewives_. “You saw him yesterday?”

“I ran into him at the rink. He got there early before hockey practice with his bros and was making fun of my attempts at a triple. I said he couldn’t do any better so he got on the ice and pulled a couple tricks.”

“ _Qué caliente_!” Madi exclaimed, fanning herself. Seriously. She was a drama queen. How this girl didn’t want to emote in a ruffly skirt with a toe pick Clarke would never understand.

“Stop!” Clarke swatted her with a pillow. “I thought you were on my side!"

"I always am!"

"Well, act like it!" Clarke sighed. "Oh, and because she’s completely lost her marbles, dear old Mom invited Bellamy to live with us.”

“No.”

“Yes,” Clarke insisted. “ _And_ his sister. They’re moving in tomorrow.”

“It could be fun, having some more people around the house besides Mom and Marcus,” Madi said.

“Are you on my side or what?” she asked.

“On your side,” Madi decided, after making a big show of thinking about it.

“He’s the worst.”

“I dunno, he sounds just like you: shady and argumentative.”

“Not fair.” Clarke bit the head off of another gummy worm.

“It could be fun, Clarke,” Madi insisted.

* * *

 

The next day when Clarke returned from morning practice (she had to keep gaining strength, no matter her skating medium), Abby had taken over the house. The arrival of more guests seemed to send her need to control the house into overdrive, and she was spiraling out a bit. If it weren’t so potentially catastrophic, Clarke would sit back and watch the entertainment. Unfortunately, the health and safety of all those inhabiting the Griffin home were at risk if Abby wasn’t calmed and cleansed.

“What the hell?” Clarke asked, not directly to Abby, but it was interpreted as such.

“The Blake siblings are arriving this afternoon, and the house is a mess. I can’t believe I let the living room get this messy, and all the countertops in the kitchen need cleaning— there are crumbs everywhere. The whole second floor needs to be vacuumed, and I still haven’t put clean linens on the beds in their rooms. I got our old furniture out of storage and repurposed your father’s office into a bedroom, so I hope Bellamy likes it. His sister will be in the last guest bedroom, but there’s a coat of dust all over that room—“

“Oh my god, Mom, they’re not royalty,” Clarke grumbled, and Abby’s attention snapped to her daughter.

“First impressions matter, Clarke. And we offered them a place to stay.”

“Well, technically _you_ offered them,” she added under her breath, but of course Abby heard and gave her a patented “disappointed mother” look.

“Okay fine,” Clarke sighed. “I’ll help make the beds, but I am not vacuuming the whole house for this guy.”

“This _guy_ ,” Abby insisted, “is our last chance for your career. So I would be a little nicer to him if I were you.”

Clarke just rolled her eyes and grabbed the offered stack of bed sheets, stomping up the staircase.

* * *

 

“Bellamy!” Abby gushed, opening the front door like the gracious hostess she pretended to be. “So glad you’re staying with us.”

Clarke had chosen to be absent at the moment. The doorbell had rung and Abby flitted to the mirror in the front hall, checking hair, makeup, clothes, teeth. But Clarke stayed firmly planted in the living room, lounging on a couch and flipping through Madi’s Entertainment Weekly, just for something to do. Magazines were the perfect way to seem uninterested. A casual flip of a magazine page was crucial to the aloof persona Clarke was cultivating in this moment, and having no magazine subscriptions of her own to draw from, she settled for Madi’s latest issue. Apparently someone was in talks to remake the Batman franchise, but what else was new? They remade Batman like every five years. Clarke rolled her eyes and flipped the page.

“Thanks, Mrs. Griffin,” Bellamy replied, putting forth an earnestness that surprised Clarke.

“Oh, please, call me Abby.” Clarke snorted. “And this must be your sister.”

“Yeah. This is Octavia,” Clarke heard Bellamy introduce her.

“Clarke! Madi! The Blakes are here!” Abby called, and Clarke sighed, closing the magazine. So much for aloof. She heard the patter of Madi’s footsteps descending the main staircase. When Clarke turned the corner into the front hall, she saw Bellamy standing next to a similarly tall teenage girl.

Bellamy saw her. “Clarke, this is my sister—“

“—Eight,” Clarke said, recognizing her. It was the same girl from Walgreens yesterday. The hockey girl with Ben & Jerry's.

“Shark Week! Hi! Only my team members call me Eight. I’m Octavia,” she said, bounding over and giving Clarke a big hug.

“Clarke,” she replied, giving in to the embrace. There was something intrinsically likeable about Octavia.

“You know each other?” Abby asked.

“We met yesterday afternoon at Walgreens,” Octavia replied, taking Abby’s attention. “She had a rough day. With my brother, as I now understand it.”

Octavia wiggled her eyebrows in mockery, but it seemed more directed at her brother than Clarke.

“O, don't,” Bellamy groaned.

Octavia just laughed. “Come on, Bell!”

It was strange to see Bellamy so warm. With all of their previous interactions, there was a tanginess about him, like a lemon. Now, next to his sister, he completely softened, giving off a cozy, sunrise quality. He was even smiling: not just the smug smile he gave her when they argued, but a genuine, open smile that felt kind, of all things. Clarke found it a little unsettling, to say the least. She turned to Madi instead of confronting it.

“This is my sister, Madi.”

“Oh yeah, of couse,” Octavia grinned, giving Madi an equally big hug. “We met at one of those clinics a couple weeks back. You’ve got skills, lady.”

Madi glowed under Octavia’s praise. Abby clasped her hands together, clearly pleased all of her masterminding was paying off.

“We should get you both settled in your rooms,” Abby decided. “Is this all of your stuff?”

Clarke looked around. For the two of them, there were two duffel bags, one suitcase, and a pair of backpacks. Not a lot for moving in.

“Yeah, we don’t keep a lot of stuff, Mrs. Griffin,” Bellamy said, and with Abby’s look, amended, “--Abby. Sorry.”

“Nothing to worry about. Clarke, can you show Bellamy to his room? I’m sure Madi would love to talk about hockey with Octavia.”

“Sure,” Clare replied, actively attempting to de-clench. She went to pick up one of the duffel bags, but Bellamy grabbed it first.

“I got it,” he said, slinging it over his shoulder along with a backpack. He grabbed the other duffel and motioned for her to lead him up the staircase, but it took a second for her to start moving. She just stood there, staring at his flexed muscles, throwing about sizable luggage like it was nothing. There was a brief moment when she fantasized about him picking her up and throwing her over his shoulder in a firemen’s carry, but she shut that down quickly. Now was not the time for her "burning building" fantasy. She was a professional, and he was going to be her competition partner. Ogling him would not help.

“Yeah, um okay,” she stuttered, clearing her head and hating herself for being so cliché. She ascended the staircase and made the right turn towards her father’s old office.

“Here’s you,” she said, opening the door.

It looked completely different than it had when it was her father’s office. Quickly after he passed, Abby had put the furniture in storage along with the vast collection of his keepsakes. It made sense to Clarke, since it hurt her just the same to look at them, but she did miss having a space that was distinctly her dad’s in this cavernous building. The rest of the rooms of the house had Abby's fingerprints all over them, but this room had always felt like her father.

The only things that remained from its time as an office were the shelves. One whole wall of the room was covered, floor-to-ceiling, in built-in bookshelves. All her father’s books were still there, since empty bookcases were even sadder than shelves full of her dad’s favorite things. Now there was a bed and dresser where the mahogany desk used to be, turning the room into the most librarian bedroom she’d ever seen.

"I hope you like books,” she said, awkwardly.

“Love ‘em, actually,” he replied, shuffling past her to drop the bags on the bed.

“Really?”

“Surprised, princess?” he smirked. “I _can_ read.”

Clarke blushed a little. “I mean, obviously,” she mumbled. “Well, read what you like. My dad has, _had_ a great collection.”

Suddenly, she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t mean to bring up her dead father as a conversation starter, but the present-past tense stumble made for a glaring mistake. She felt as if there was a flashing light over her head blinking “Daddy Issues” over and over. Bellamy didn’t look the most comfortable either. He immediately looked down, becoming incredibly interested in a divot in the floor.

“Okay, um, let me know if you need anything,” she added, fully intending to flee the scene. She turned to go, but his voice stopped her.

“Clarke?” he started, and she turned back to face him. “I’m sorry. About your dad, you know?”

Clarke blinked, repeatedly. It was one of those moments that would have a sound in a cartoon: a little xylophone tap every time she closed her eyes. One, two, three. She didn’t know how to process what was happening. Who was this guy, and what had he done with the Bellamy she had met?

Rather than contemplate that complex question, she stuttered out a quick “thanks” and fled. Between the physique fantasy and his kindness about her dad, she was completely turned backwards.

To herself, Clarke muttered, “This is most inconvenient, as I have sworn to loath him for all eternity,” and immediately clapped a hand over her mouth, remembering the origin of the phrase. Madi had made her watch _Pride and Prejudice_ too many times, and it had seeped into her subconscious, something Clarke would now never forgive her for. Watching the soapy love story was one thing, quoting Elizabeth Bennett was quite another. Unfortunately, she realized it was correct. She had intended to dislike him until this ridiculous experiment of her mother's failed, but now she wasn't so sure. She kicked herself for letting her life become some melodramatic period piece. She had to keep him out of her head.

Clarke sighed. Madi was going to love this.


	5. Arguing Won't Solve It (But It Sure Feels Good)

“And one-two, three-four, turn your hips, Clarke he’s going to drop you—“

Clarke stretched her back out a little further in the hold, rotating her hips in Bellamy’s grasp. She would like the record to reflect that she was doing exactly as she was told. Her drill-sergeant mother had instructed her to rotate her pelvis or Bellamy wouldn’t be able to hold her up. She interpreted that as an “either/or” kind of situation, not an “if/then”.

No matter what Clarke had intended, Bellamy did not seem to have anticipated Clarke’s balance shift when rotating her hips, and his (frankly plate-sized) hands fumbled a bit on her waist before she fell from his grasp. Right on top of him.

“Clarke!” Abby admonished. “I said to turn your hips.”

“I did,” Clarke shot back, leaning up from her place on the ice. “I was rotating my pelvis. Bellamy’s the one who dropped me.”

“It is not your partner’s fault for dropping you,” Abby replied dryly.

"Could you maybe continue this fight once you’re not squishing me?” Bellamy asked, and Clarke scrambled off of him.

“He’s a complete amateur,” Clarke pointed out. “Sure he can do jumps, but he doesn’t know lifts at all.”

“I suppose I could put you in the harness then,” Abby offered, and Clarke scoffed.

“There is no way I am going into the harness. No way.” The harness was for losers and children, and Clarke was certainly neither of those. She would rather skate in the nude in front of the entire men’s intramural hockey league before she would ever get in that damn harness. It was for quitters.

“Then you’re going to have to trust your partner not to drop you,” Abby suggested.

Clarke turned to Bellamy, who was brushing himself off from their tumble. He smirked at her.

“You’re not doing much better, Bellamy,” Abby added, and Bellamy’s grin dropped. “You have to be more firm in your holds. Your hands are up here—“ Abby grabbed his hands and pressed them onto Clarke’s waist, “—When you need to be holding her down here—“ She moved them down to cup each of Clarke’s hipbones “—or you will drop her. Secure her at her center, at her hips. Hold the pelvis like a chalice.”

Clarke could not believe the words coming out of Abby’s mouth. She knew that pairs skating was a truly collaborative sport, but for some reason didn’t realize the intimacy involved. Last year at nationals she saw Charlie and Meryl around the stadium, attached at the hip basically, and they’re both married to other people! She could not understand being so open with someone. Since starting training together, Bellamy’s hands and arms had been all over her. For the sake of skating and safety, of course, but jeez. Try asking a perfect stranger on the street to “cup the chalice of your pelvis”. Clarke could guarantee it wouldn’t go well.

“Let’s take it one more time,” Abby started, and the two assumed the pre-hold position. “And one-two, three-grab-lift. Lower Bellamy, you need to be in a wide squat—“

“She’s literally putting her blade on my leg. How is this not crazy?” Bellamy asked, stretching down into a deeper squat.

“Get used to it,” Clarke called over her shoulder, outstretching her arms. “This is the easiest hold. Besides the bridal carry.”

“Oh, you mean this?” In one movement, Bellamy’s hands let go of her hips and Clarke started to pitch forward without his arms to hold her back. Instead of face-planting on the ice, Bellamy skated a step forward and caught her under her knees and behind her back. Clarke wrapped her arms around his neck to hold herself steady. She felt completely secure, unlike the previous position where she was standing on his thighs, arms outstretched. He kept skating out, pulling them into a spin. It felt amazing, but Clarke would never admit that. Through years and years of training, she had forgotten what a thrill new elements could give her. Rotating in Bellamy’s arms over and over, she felt her heart fly up to her throat.

He slowed to a performative stop, legs stretched and practically presenting Clarke in his arms to Abby. Clarke wriggled out of his arms and fought back to standing. She turned to him, and noticed he was smiling, so she scowled and punched him in the chest.

“You can’t just do that! You have to warn me when you’re going to let go! I can’t believe you would do that!” She threw in another punch for good measure.

“Oh come on, princess. It wasn’t that bad. I caught you, didn’t I?” Bellamy folded his arms over his chest.

“Well your free-styling isn’t going to work when we start choreographing the routines. You have to do it exactly the same every time.”

“I can follow directions, okay? Monkey see, monkey do.”

Clarke rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t saying you were dumb. You just have to tell me before you drop me out of the blue!”

“How about we take a break?” Abby looked how Clarke felt: utterly exhausted by the entire experience. She didn’t think her mother quite understood what she was getting into when she decided to make her incredibly independent daughter learn pairs skating with a guy who had never done figure skating before. But Clarke didn’t feel sorry for her one bit. Abby really should have thought that one through.

Clarke sighed. “Fine by me,” she said, skating over to the boards. She took a moment to check her phone. When she unlocked it, she remembered the picture she took this morning before practice. She had set her skates next to Bellamy’s figure skates on the bench as they were getting ready and they just looked nice together—Clarke’s white, battered skates next to Bellamy’s brand-new black ones. It was a really cute shot, and since she was raised by media-queen Abby Griffin herself, she knew that it would be a good promo shot for her Instagram. You always have to be building your brand, as Abby would say.

Clarke started to compose the post, starting and deleting several times before settling on “Another day with the new partner. #pairsskate” It was simple and it was effective. It announced her new role as a pairs competitor without her having to gush about what a wonderful experience working with Bellamy was. Clarke always said she would exaggerate reality for her media, but never lie. And saying that being Bellamy’s skating partner was a “joy” or a “pleasure” would be a complete falsehood. They had done nothing but bicker and get in each other’s way since they started last week.

True, the first few days consisted of Marcus and Abby teaching Bellamy to glide in figure skates while Clarke cackled, but the tables quickly turned as Clarke needed to learn to let Bellamy lead in parallel movement and Ballroom position. She wasn’t the kind of person who was “led”, so she often got in his way. On the other hand, as the person being lifted and moved about, she would be the person to lead those movements, and Bellamy had yet to learn how to yield control. The two of them were quite the pair.

Clarke pressed the button to post the picture, and dropped her phone back into her bag. For now, Abby was calling her back over after having shown Bellamy a new leg positioning. Maybe this time he wouldn’t drop her.

* * *

 

Later that day when Clarke got home from the rink, her phone rang.

“Hello?” she answered.

“You drop out of singles competition, get a brand-new partner to skate with, start training with him, and you don’t even call me?”

Clarke recognized the voice instantly, and smiled. “Hi Raven.”

“I mean, seriously, Clarke. What is going on with you?”

“Nothing is going on,” she insisted. “With my leg injury, I don’t have a lot of the jump skills I need to compete. Pairs has less of that, so Abby thought—“

“Oh, I knew this was a patented Abby Griffin Master Plan,” Raven interrupted. Clarke could almost hear her sitting up from the couch in vindication. “There was no way that you became a team player of your own volition.”

“Hey! I’m a team player!” Clarke insisted, and then laughed. “I know, it sounded weird even for me to say it. But I’m trying.”

“Who’s your partner? Did you have to do auditions? I heard Roan’s in the market for a new partner. Did you audition him? I would climb that boy like a tree.”

Clarke laughed. This is why she liked Raven, and why she went up to her when they first met. She was a no-nonsense kind of girl, and completely metal. Her last short program was to Scorpion’s “Hurricane”. She rocked it.

“It’s not Roan. Though you’re completely welcome to drop out of singles and join me. He’s still looking for a partner,” Clarke teased.

“I like my Griffin-less singles competition just fine, thanks,” Raven replied. “Oh god, Clarke I didn’t mean it like that. I’ll miss you, it’s just—“

“It’s fine, Raven,” Clarke said. “I get it.”

“So who is it?” If they were talking in person, this would be the moment when Raven would scooch closer and invade Clarke’s personal space. Even over the phone, she could hear Raven encroaching.

“A guy Marcus found,” Clarke answered. “Someone he saw doing tricks in the neighborhood. He’s a hockey player.”

“He’s a WHAT?”

Clarke had hoped that she said the last bit quiet enough that Raven didn’t pick up on it. She was mistaken.

“You’re skating with a hockey player? Jesus, Clarke, I thought we had a pact! No hockey players. They’re like rabid dogs, foaming at the mouth!”

“I’m just skating with him,” Clarke argued.

“You sure?”

“I’m not sleeping with him!” she exclaimed, then moderated her volume, remembering that she was on the first floor, in general hearing-distance of a lot of people.

“I should hope not,” Raven replied, in a high-and-mighty tone.

“Look who’s calling the kettle, Raven,” Clarke argued back. “I still remember who was leaving Finn Gallagher’s room the day after Expo in March.”

“You know that was different! He answered a call from his girlfriend in the middle of it!”

“That’s right. God he was the worst.”

“Thank Jesus he was traded to the Winnipeg Jets and I never have to see him again.”

“Bellamy’s not like Finn,” Clarke insisted.

“Ooh, Bell-a-my,” Raven sing-songed. “Is he tall? Dark? Handsome?”

“All three, but he’s my skating partner. And a righteous asshole.”

“So you won’t mind if I add him to my list for Regionals?”

Clarke rolled her eyes. “Do not put my skating partner on your Bang List. I beg of you.”

“I can’t help it if I’m irresistibly attractive to the male skating population.”

“I’ve missed you.” And Clarke meant it. Raven kept everything in perspective.

“I know,” Raven replied. “I’ll see you at Regionals though, right?”

“If I don’t kill Bellamy first,” Clarke said wryly.

“Talk to you soon, champ.”

“You too, flygirl,” Clarke answered, and the two hung up. Ever since beating her at Nationals, Raven had taken to calling her champ, and in response to that and the sheer amount of air she would get on every jump, Clarke called Raven flygirl.

Clarke smiled at the memory, but was startled by a clang in the kitchen. She tiptoed around the staircase and turned the corner to see Bellamy at the stove, possibly trying to cook. She stood in the doorway for a few minutes watching him assemble a beautiful grilled cheese. Her involuntary sneeze alerted him to her presence.

“Stalking me now, princess?” he asked, mouth full of gooey cheese.

“It’s my house,” Clarke shot back.

“Still. Don’t just stand in the room watching someone. It’s creepy.”

Bellamy opened the freezer and rummaged around, producing a bag of frozen blueberries.

“Blueberries go well with grilled cheese, do they?” Clarke asked, and Bellamy responded by rolling his eyes and wrapping the bag around his right arm.

“They do when you need something cold,” he replied.

“You know we have actual ice packs,” Clarke pointed out. “We’re not savages.”

“We didn’t have ice packs growing up,” Bellamy said. “We had frozen peas. Force of habit, I guess. I’m not used to the arm-workout of skating.”

Clarke went silent, unsure what to say. She noticed his gym bag sitting on one of the counter chairs, and a couple of what looked like homemade brownies sitting on the counter.

“No way,” she said. “If you have sweets, you have to share. It’s the rules of the Griffin house. Abby has a lock on the junk food and it’s ridiculous--”

“Clarke, don’t—“ Clarke had been reaching for a brownie when Bellamy stopped her.

“What? What’s wrong with it? Do you have a sharing problem?” Clarke raised her eyebrows, challenging him.

“No, it’s not, I mean, Just don’t—“ Bellamy was fumbling, and Clarke realized there was a post-it stuck to the treat.

“ 'Hey Bell, have fun and relax. Maybe give some to the princess and loosen her up’ ,” Clarke read off the note. She thought for a moment. “Are these pot brownies?”

Bellamy put his head in his hands on the counter. “My hockey friends put them in my bag. Jasper and Monty bake all kinds of stuff, and I guess they were trying to be funny.”

“This isn’t a joke, Bellamy. If we’re drug tested, we could be disqualified.”

“Princess, it’s not a big deal. It’s not like I was going to eat them.”

“You’re damn right you’re not,” Clarke added indignantly, sweeping up the lot of them and dumping them in the trash. “I have worked too hard for too long to have some stoner hockey bro blow this for me.”

“Did you miss the part where I said that I wasn’t going to eat them? I mean, god, Clarke, do you have an ounce of trust in your body?”

“I don’t need to trust you when you’ve done nothing to deserve it! I’m trying to make this moronic idea of my mother’s work, but if you’re just here to screw around—“

“I’m not screwing around with anything, Clarke. I’m serious. Now would you chill out for a second?”

“Not with you,” Clarke snorted, stalking out of the kitchen and up to her room.

He could be as irresponsible as he wanted. She wasn’t his keeper. And she was plenty loose, thank you very much.

* * *

“One-two, step-three and glide. Clarke, you need to keep your hands parallel. Breathe tall. Bellamy, keep your footing straight,” Abby instructed.

Another day, another drill. Abby seemed to have given up on lifts for the time being, focusing this morning on the parallel elements. Twizzles were proving particularly difficult, as she and Bellamy could not manage to both spin at the same rate and not slice each other open with their skates. Several Disney Princess bandages had already been distributed this afternoon.

“Good, good,” Abby praised, though Clark doubted it looked good at all. “Now do a long skate back and do the twizzle pass again. Keep the footwork matching!”

Clarke made the turn first, forcing Bellamy to skate to catch up as they skated away from Abby to make the approach again. In building power he hit her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her.

“Bellamy!” Clarke shouted once she got her breath back. “You can’t just hit me!”

“It was an accident, princess! I was trying to catch up to you flying to the back of the rink. Could you maybe operate at a standard speed?”

“How about not hitting me in the stomach?”

“How about not tripping me?”

“That’s just the toe pick, Bellamy. If you would learn how to skate with one you wouldn’t have this problem.”

“It’s not just the pick, your footwork is in my way!”

“It is _not_!”

“Alright stop!” Abby’s voice carried from the other side of the rink. “You two need to stop bickering. You need to get along. And most importantly, you need to get in sync. I didn’t want to have to do this, but you give me no choice. Get over here.”

Clarke and Bellamy skated back to Abby with the same confidence of shamed puppies, heads down and tails between their legs. Abby produced two padded belts, which she attached to both Clarke and Bellamy, and a stretchy rubber band with two carabiners, which she clipped to each belt.

“This is it,” Abby said with finality.

“This is what?” Clarke asked.

“This is your life. All waking hours, bathroom breaks excepted. You two need to learn to coexist, to anticipate each other’s needs and intentions. On the rink, the smallest movement can convey the largest of intentions. In short, you two need to get along.”

There was a brief moment of silence, and then Clarke & Bellamy both began talking at once.

“You can’t possibly expect me to be attached at the hip with this guy—“

“Just because she won’t stay in her own lane when we skate next to each other—“

Abby held up her hand, and they both silenced.

“You will do this, and you will do it without complaint,” Abby said with certainty. “You are attached until I say so. Now go clean up.”

Abby sashayed off in the way only she can, leaving the two of them to stare at each other.

“Fuck,” Bellamy sighed, finally.

“Well said,” Clarke replied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe that almost 1k people have read this. Thank you to everyone who's checked it out, especially those who like and review.
> 
> Here's to the next.


	6. Close Encounters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A touch of profanity, nothing too much. We'll see if I upgrade the rating. For now, read and review!

It had been a week.

A long fucking week. A week of dragging each other around, being dragged around, elbows in stomachs, heads hitting all manner of obstacles, and any other kind of inconvenience you could imagine. Every time she tried to move, he was right next to her, like dead weight she was hauling around. She had taken to spending most hours on the couch, as she could live her life fairly unencumbered when the two were stationed together on the couch. Like a pair of ex-partners attending group therapy.

Her least favorite part of the day was the minute she awoke, as the second she stepped outside her bedroom, Abby would holler for the two to clip together. Her favorite part of the day was quickly becoming the moment she bid Bellamy good night, because it meant she could unclip and lay down in her own, solitary bed and sleep, far _far_ away from the annoying tree she had been forced to drag around. 

For the first time in her life Clarke delighted in her mother’s puritanical values. Were it not for those, Clarke was sure that Abby would have them sharing a bed. Raven suggested as much, which Clarke could only roll her eyes at. She itched to rip the belt off constantly, and it had the unfortunate byproduct of a permanent clench within her. She just wanted her own space. Sure, she’d be doing practically the same thing as she was doing with Bellamy dragging behind, or dragging her, but the point was she would be doing it alone.

Madi thought this was hilarious. And after a day of the two of them bickering and taking one another out with their attempts to stretch the band, Octavia joined her. It was becoming a spectator sport in the communal areas of the Griffin house, something neither Bellamy nor Clarke appreciated. Because of the constant voyeurism of it all, Clarke and Bellamy had taken to co-habitating in less communal spaces, particularly Bellamy’s room. Clarke loved it because it still felt a little bit like her dad’s office, and Bellamy liked the book selection. That made Clarke proud. Books only made it to the shelves if her father truly had enjoyed it. Most days they could be found sitting on the ground against the windowsill in the room, belts on and within band distance— Clarke on her laptop, Bellamy’s nose in a book.

On this particular evening, Clarke was scrolling through Facebook while Bellamy read _Love in the Time of Cholera_. He had blazed through several books already, and Clarke had opinions on them all: _The Alchemist_ (“too boring, I mean really, he spends like a third of the book being a glassblower”), _The Things They Carried_ (“So meta”), and even _Atonement_ (“I can’t escape Kiera Knightley if I try!”). True, she spent her time in their side-by-side minutia on her computer, but more often than not she just read over Bellamy’s shoulder.

Which is why at that particular moment, while pretending to be very interested in a foodie cooking video on the internet, Clarke was actually fairly engrossed in the tragic romance of Florentino and Fermina. If Clarke was honest, Bellamy’s book selection was fascinating. She wouldn’t imagine him loving these heart-wrenching romantic classics, but here he was. Maybe he was just a big softie.

“Girls! Bellamy! Dinner!” Marcus called from downstairs, and Bellamy rocketed to his feet, pulling Clarke to standing as well. She was just able to catch her laptop from falling to the ground, and gently set it on Bellamy’s bed before being pulled after him down the hall.

“Bellamy, slow down,” Clarke said, trying to physically hold him back. It did little good.

“Clarke, I’m starving. Let’s go,” Bellamy said over his shoulder.

“No.” Clarke stopped in her tracks, grabbing hold of the railing to stop their progress.

“No?”

“No. Just because you’re bigger than I am doesn’t mean you get to drag me around the house. No.”

Bellamy stopped his forward trudge and turned to face her. They were very close at this moment, and like every other time they were this close, Clarke realized Bellamy had huge splashes of freckles all over his face. His skin was swirled with freckles, and it was arresting to see up close.

“Really, Princess?” Bellamy murmured, and Clarke felt her heart stop. “Cause I think it does.”

The next thing she knew, she was flying through the air and landing over Bellamy’s shoulder. 

When she said that she had a fantasy about being carried over a guy’s shoulder, this wasn’t exactly what Clarke had in mind. A burning building surrounding her and a muscular firefighter carrying her to safety? Check.  A handsome shirtless boyfriend carrying her to his bed with a reddi-whip can? Yes please. Her skating partner taking advantage of their height difference to make it to carbs quicker? Hard pass.

“Bellamy! Put me down!”

“No way,” Bellamy responded. “Marcus made pasta. We’re going.”

“Bellamy!” Clarke screeched. “Put. Me. Down! Mom! Marcus! Help! Bellamy! Put me down now!”

Clarke continued her hollering as Bellamy carried her down the stairs, around the corner, and into the dining room. She was still over Bellamy’s shoulder like a serving wench in a Viking movie when he turned and she realized the whole group was already seated. 

Abby looked ready to have a conniption, silverware clattering to her plate. Octavia merely raised her eyebrow, forkful of spaghetti halfway to her mouth. Marcus looked amused, as if he was trying desperately not to laugh outright. For Madi, on the other hand, Christmas had come early and _90210_ was back on the air. If it was possible for a smile to actually emit light, Madi’s did. Ever since Clarke and Bellamy came home clipped at the hip, Madi had her very own soap opera in the house. And she was delighted.

After a dead silence, Bellamy had the good sense to become embarrassed, slowly lowering Clarke to the ground. The two shuffled to seats and sat down with minimal interference in the other’s path. They served themselves spaghetti and meatballs and garlic bread, the silence suffocating the room. Clarke begged someone, anyone to say something.

“Bellamy, how’s the conjoined-twin thing working out?” Octavia asked, all doe eyes and batted eyelashes.

Not that. Anything but this. There was an entire household of activities happening all the time. Could they not skip their “Get-Along-Belt” for one minute?

Bellamy sputtered for a moment. “I mean, it’s fine or whatever—“

“Madi,” Clarke interrupted. “How’s hockey going with your team?”

At that point Madi lit up again, and the chattering commenced. Clarke loved her sister. Very much. But she didn’t always pay attention to the hockey-related monologues that came out of her mouth. She figured she had at least five minutes, realistically ten, before she had to check back in on what Madi was talking about. 

Having carefully steered the dinner conversation away from her and Bellamy, Clarke dug into her spaghetti. She felt an elbow bump into her side, and turned, ready to lay into Bellamy for not staying in his area. Instead when she turned, Bellamy had a twitch of a smile in his mouth. He gave an almost imperceptible nod, which she took as thanks. She nodded back, returning to her food.

There wasn’t another elbow thrown the rest of the meal.

* * *

Later that evening, Bellamy and Clarke were sitting on the couch with Octavia in a nearby chair. Clarke and Octavia had agreed to watch _The Holiday_ on Netflix even though, as Bellamy pointed out while not looking up from his book, it was September and moronic. That didn’t bother the girls in the least. Clarke liked the feminist agency, and Octavia liked Jude Law. Win-win.

Clarke did like this movie. It was one of the only romantic movies she allowed herself to enjoy, as the women found freedom in each other’s lives and chose their own happiness over a man. Watching it next to Bellamy was interesting, as he would “harrumph” after sappy phrasing, but still laugh at the slapstick absurdity. All while not looking up from his book. She suspected he was secretly watching it, even though there was no way to prove it.

Bellamy leaned away from her to grab his soda on the side table, and Clarke went along for the ride, to reduce the struggle of maintaining her space, but then felt thirsty herself, so she leaned forward to pick up her tea on the table in front of her. Satisfied, she leaned back to watch Jack Black be surprisingly charming for a buffoon, feet resting comfortably on the coffee table.

At that moment, Octavia started cackling uncontrollably, clutching her phone.

“What is it, O?” Bellamy asked, entirely unamused.

“You have to come look at this,” Octavia laughed, wheezing the slightest bit.

Clarke stood up immediately, but Bellamy remained seated, and the rubber stretch contracted, forcing Clarke to catapult back into Bellamy’s lap. This only made Octavia laugh harder. Clarke and Bellamy awkwardly stood and walked to look over Octavia’s shoulder. 

She had captured a Snapchat video of them. Clarke had an out-of-body experience watching herself exist totally in sync with another person. On video they both leaned left so Bellamy could reach his soda, returned to normal, and then scooted forward so Clarke could reach her tea. They finished by relaxing backward and crossing their ankles on the coffee table. In. Perfect. Sync.

On the video the caption read, “Bell and Clarke are syncing up #soulmates”.

“Who are you sending this to?” Bellamy asked Octavia. He made a grab for her phone, but she quickly dodged.

“Everyone,” Octavia grinned, gloating just a little. “Jasper, Monty, Nate, Harper, Gina—“

At the mention of a Gina, Bellamy launched over the chair to grab Octavia’s phone. To her credit, Octavia moves quickly, and Bellamy had the added cargo of Clarke attached to his hip, so Octavia deftly got out of reach.

Bellamy turned to Clarke. “Please?”

Clarke laughed. “Absolutely.”

They faced forward, staring directly at Octavia, who clearly didn’t anticipate Clarke joining Bellamy’s side. She let out a yelp and ran down the hallway, yelling, “I already sent it! I already sent it!” Bellamy and Clarke followed in perfect step, careening down the hall to exact justice.

* * *

Today’s practice was on fire. If Clarke could say so herself. They hadn’t done a lift in ages since they were strapped hip-to-hip, but their parallel elements had never been better. Each of their doubles were strong, and their shadow sequences were getting sharper, even in the confined space of the belts.

At the end of practice, Bellamy caught Clarke’s eye and the two slid into a deep lunge, gliding straight toward Abby and landing, arms placed gracefully around each other, at Abby’s feet. Each with shit-eating grins.

“There you go,” Abby said. “Finally.”

She reached between the two and unclipped their belts.

“We start lifts again tomorrow,” she said, skating away from the pair to the exit. “Enjoy your freedom.”

“Oh thank _god_ ,” Bellamy sighed, running his hands through his hair.

Clarke was stunned. After being attached for so long, she didn’t know what she was supposed to do with all her returned personal space. Oh wait. Of course she did.

Clarke shot to the center of the rink, feeling the air gliding around her and relishing the freedom of outstretching her hands the whole way. Her wingspan felt extraordinary. This was what baby birds must feel the first time they truly fly. Completely overjoyed, Clarke launched into a jump. This time, she would do it.

Her pick hit the ice and she catapulted into the air, completing three turns and landing effortlessly. It was the best feeling in the world. She couldn’t believe it.

“Oh my god, Bellamy I did it!” she shouted, and turned to see Bellamy grinning at her.

“Good one, Princess,” he said, and gave her a side hug before skating past her to the benches. “I’ll see you later.”

“Where are you going?” Clarke was confused.

“I’ve got to zamboni and prep for the peewee hockey,” he called. “I’ve been skipping it because I’ve been strapped to you, but now I’ve got to catch up.”

Clarke skated over to the bench, watching him shed his skates and put on a pair of beat-up boots.

“I’m sure Abby and Marcus understand. You’ve been doing other things.”

“I know. Marcus has been helping the last few weeks. But I’ve just got to catch up,” Bellamy said again.

“Why?”

Bellamy didn’t say anything for a moment. “It’s the only way I can keep Octavia on the team. Your dad gave me a discounted cost for her dues in return for the zamboni job.”

Clarke was stunned. “Really?”

“Yeah. I can’t afford her dues without it. And she’s good, Clarke. She could get a scholarship for it. It’s how we’ll pay for her college.”

It was completely blinding to consider. Sure, Clarke was eighteen and not in college, but that was more personal circumstances than need. She had been looking at schools when her father died and she broke her leg. It wouldn’t even occur to her to not be able to attend college if she wanted. And Octavia of all people deserved to go to college. She was sweet and hopeful and amazing.

It suddenly dawned on her how different they were. Bellamy was raising his sister, and supporting her. Besides skating, Clarke had never even had a job. She had this overwhelming need to hold tight to him and not let go. She settled for a little less.

“Okay. I’ll wait,” she said, plopping down on the bench. “We can get pizza on the way home and surprise Octavia and Madi. We could watch _Pride and Prejudice_ again.”

“No, Clarke, you go. It’s fine,” Bellamy replied. “I’m going to go back home for the night, see my friends. I haven't been back because I was with you all the time, literally, but I should go catch up.”

There was something about the way that he said it. 

“Okay, see you soon,” she answered quietly, grabbing her bag and jacket and heading for the exit.

Clarke couldn’t put her finger on it at the moment, but realized it in the car. She had called the Griffin estate “home”, but he had countered with his own home. They had spent every waking hour together and Clarke had thought they knew each other, but she was confronted with the idea that they were still relative strangers. Her house was not his home, no matter how many hours he spent in it. This fondness that she was growing to have for his presence was unreturned. 

And they were completely different people. He still had his friends from the neighborhood, a gang of people who had chosen to be with him. They were his family and his friends, and they were the people he chose to spend time with. Clarke was an occupational hazard for him. Clarke could count on one hand how many friends she had. Possibly even in one breath. And she thought Bellamy was one of them. But apparently not.

They were skating partners, and Clarke should start acting like it.


	7. Just Talk, Dummy

Clarke shut the door behind her. If it was possible to feel like the human manifestation of a fart, she did. She dropped her bag and coat, and shuffled, sock-footed, towards the kitchen. In an instant, she was stopped in her tracks. No matter what she had been expecting, she was not expecting that.

“That” was Octavia and Madi presenting her with a cake, lopsided lettering spelling out “You’re free” in chocolate frosting. If Clarke was honest, the kitchen looked too good for the cake to actually have been created in this kitchen. Her best guess? They bought the cake at Shaw’s and used premade frosting to spell the congratulations. She knew Madi’s skill level.

“Surprise!” the two shouted. For no apparent reason, Octavia was wearing a birthday hat.

But this was becoming par for the course with Octavia. There was always at least one element of her at any given moment that was completely inexplicable. Last week she was wearing a “Justice for Barb” button for three straight days. It took several Google searches and a foray into the less-functional sides of the Internet to figure out what the hell Octavia was doing.

At least Clarke tried, though. Bellamy had looked up from his book for a moment, snorted, and looked back down again, asking if she "was sure Barb deserved justice.” It was like he delighted in infuriating her. Clarke at least had the decency to try to figure out what Octavia’s obscure style referenced.

“Where’s Bellamy?” Octavia asked, noting the empty space next to Clarke.

“He stayed at the rink to clean up, and then he’s going to Amherst, I guess?” Clarke was going for nonchalance, but she was pretty sure she sounded a fair bit pathetic as well.

“Rude,” Madi said, putting down the cake onto the counter. That at least made Clarke chuckle. “We made a cake.”

“That’s putting it generously. To be fair, we didn’t know you were going to be having a release party when we got back,” Clarke replied. She suddenly got hit with a wave of exhaustion. “You know what? I’m not feeling so hot. I’m just going to go upstairs. Thanks, though.”

Without another word, Clarke fetched her bag from the hall and shuffled upstairs to her room, face-planting on her bed. She could stay here forever, right?

* * *

 

It had been another long week. After their un-shackling on Friday, Clarke spent the weekend moping, as expected. She avoided Madi and Octavia’s attempts to watch movies or go for manicures, citing a headache and exhaustion. What she really did was finish _Love in the Time of Cholera_ and scroll standup routines for most of the weekend. It was basically nothing.

She kept waiting for the door to slam and Bellamy’s heavy footfalls to echo through the house, proclaiming his return. She knew she was being ridiculous, being so hung up on his leaving, but there wasn’t anything she could do to stop it. It was like brain vomit—no matter how hard she tried to hold it back or settle it with ginger ale, it just kept coming. Nothing she was feeling was being kept down. It was all spewing out of her, unnecessary but unstoppable. Bellamy was gone all weekend.

On Monday she was back on the rink with Bellamy, and it was as strained as their last conversation. Clarke kept trying to find an opening to talk to him, but Abby had them working pretty hard to catch up from their jump-less, lift-less weeks. Every time Clarke thought she might be able to catch him after practice, he was swiftly onto the zamboni and cleaning up the arena. They were still in sync on the ice, but there was something about the way they held each other that was off. Abby said as much.

“She’s not going to break, Bellamy,” Abby shouted from across the rink. “What happened to Friday? You were ready to fling her around like a salad spinner!”

Bellamy chose not to answer, focusing rather on the axel lift they were attempting. He didn’t drop her, which was encouraging, but Clarke could feel it wasn’t quite right. Like they were both trying too hard. Maybe she was projecting.

The whole week was like that. Technically perfect, but nothing was flowing. They were making amazing strides in their elements, but the way Abby shook her head told Clarke that they didn’t have what they needed. Her dad always said that skating was fifty-fifty, technique and heart. And right now, they were missing a whole half.

By Friday, Clarke was burnt out. Sure, they’d gotten the overhead lifts, and were closing in on a perfect death spiral, but it was taking too much brainpower just to be around him. She felt like such a moron for screwing up their partnership. She’d assumed they were friends, which was absolutely crazy, Clarke reminded herself. He was three years older than her and on a different planet when it came to what he concerned himself with. And she should have just settled it on Monday, when she saw him again. Now it was too late. It was just weird now.

After another attempt at a press lift, Abby skated over to them.

“I think we’re done for the day,” she said, and left Clarke and Bellamy to it. She was always doing that now—leaving them alone on the ice when she had finished. It felt much like her washing her hands of the situation, as if the tension was not her fault.

When she turned around Bellamy had already vanished and Clarke spotted him by the zamboni, revving it up to drive. She sighed, resigning herself to another quiet drive and a quiet night at home, when she heard a shout over the rumble of the zamboni.

“Clarke!” She turned. Sure enough, Bellamy was waving his hands.

“What?”

“Do you want to ride with me? On the zamboni?”

“Sure,” Clarke replied without thinking, grabbing her guards and slicing over to him at the dock.

“Come on,” he said, sweeping behind her and lifting her lightly up onto the left seat of the machine before she had a moment to think about it. He crossed around and landed in the right seat beside her.

“You excited?” he asked, and she smirked. “It’s cooler than you think, princess.”

It was. It was strange to be so far above the ice, stationary. The only time she got this high was during jumps, and she was down as soon as she was up. To be continually this far above the ice was unsettling. But the view was perfect. She turned around in her seat to watch the perfectly smooth ice come out the back of the machine, glossy and newborn after the butchering of their practice. 

“So, Clarke,” Bellamy started, uncertainty warbling his voice. “Are you okay?” 

She was startled. Whatever she thought he was going to say, it wasn’t that.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” she answered, though she was sure it was not entirely convincing.

“Things have just been weird since last week. If it was because I talked about your dad, I’m really sorry. It’s just, he helped me a lot when I first got here, and I didn’t think it would upset you—“

“No, it’s fine. It’s not that,” Clarke assured him.

“Well than what? I did something." 

“I’m just, I have to, on Friday I, I realized that we aren’t friends. And that made me sad.”

There was that emotion vomit again. Bellamy didn’t say anything, executing the wide turn at one end of the rink. His lack of response didn’t help Clarke’s nervousness. If anything, it made it worse.

“I mean, I get it. I assumed, since we spent all this time together, that we were friends. I know we were strapped together, so you didn’t have any choice, but completely dropping me like a hot potato as soon as you were free was a little rude,” Clarke continued to spiral. It was an anxiety-fuelled spiral that she understood was completely useless, but it didn’t keep her mouth shut. She just kept going. “I get that you’re not going to want to be my friend, but you didn’t have to be mean about it. I get it. We’re not friends. I’ll back off.”

Clarke was finally able to shut her giant mouth and waited, sweating in the deep silence between them. Then Bellamy started laughing.

“What?” Clarke asked, eyes narrowing.

“It’s, Jesus, Clarke, that’s what’s been making you so crazy?” Bellamy asked. That only made her more indignant.

“I am not crazy,” Clarke insisted. Bellamy only laughed harder.

“I know that, princess.”

“Don’t—" 

“You don’t have many friends, do you?” That stopped Clarke cold.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“You’re not very good at this,” Bellamy answered, still grinning.

“Good at what?”

“Becoming friends.”

“We’re not friends. We’re skating partners,” she replied, but even she didn’t quite believe that. Sure, she wished they were friends, but wishing didn’t make it so.

“Is that what you want?” he asked.

“No,” Clarke pouted. Or as close to a pout as she was allowed, as an actual adult in the real world. She knew that grown women didn’t pout, or at least shouldn’t pout, but she couldn’t help herself.

“I hate to tell you, princess, but we’re friends,” he said, making the sharper turns towards the center of the ice. Almost all of it was glossy and clean. Clarke was going to have a hard time walking away after this. She never could resist a clean sheet of ice.

“Really?” She was still skeptical. He wasn’t pacifying her for the sake of competition, was he? “Then why did you leave last weekend? You were gone all weekend.”

Bellamy snorted. “I went to the bar with my friends on Friday, Clarke.”

“So?”

“So,” he continued, “I crashed in Amherst and woke up with a wicked hangover. We played video games and ate pizza for two days.”

“I eat pizza,” Clarke mumbled petulantly.

“Clarke, seriously. I’ve spent every waking minute in your world since we started. Your world is just a little stiff for me all the time. Your mom doesn’t even keep Oreos in the pantry. It’s completely messing with me. I just needed to feel like myself for a while.”

She could understand why he would need an escape. All that charged silence at the Griffin house had become normal to Clarke, but from the outside, she could see how it would be a lot. And she hadn’t shared her junk food stash with him yet. He was living a gummy-worm-less existence in that house. She wouldn’t be able to cope.

“Sure,” she answered sheepishly.

“Tell you what. I’m going back to Amherst again tonight to meet some of my friends at the Irish pub in town. Come with me.”

Clarke was stunned. “Oh I couldn’t, you know Abby likes us to rest and—“

“Screw it. Don’t you ever do something you’re not supposed to?” Bellamy challenged.

She huffed. Why did Bellamy always make her feel so stupid and boring?

“Be unexpected for one night, Clarke. It’s just one night.”

* * *

 

Abby had not taken it well. Clarke had left her car at the Griffin Center, letting Bellamy give her a ride to Amherst. She called Abby on the way to inform her not to wait for her return, and that had devolved into a lecture on shirking her responsibilities. But as Bellamy pointed out, they were already free for twenty-four hours before their next practice. Staying at home or going to Amherst—it didn’t make much of a difference.

When they finally pulled into the lot at Dropkick’s, Clarke was jittery. She didn’t really “do” meeting new people. She wasn’t good at it. The fact that she had met Raven and that snarky lady stuck around was a continuing mystery. Bellamy must have noticed her unease because after putting the car in park, he put a hand on her shoulder.

“You’ll be fine, Clarke,” he assured her.

“I’m not good at this,” Clarke admitted.

Bellamy snorted. “I know. Remember how we met?”

She rolled her eyes. “This isn’t going to be anything like that, is it?”

“Nah, nothing like that. But be yourself. It’s all you can do.”

“Thanks for the pep talk, Supporting-Character-from-an-Eighties’-Movie,” Clarke responded. “Would you also like to explain why the jocks and geeks don’t get along and how to get the popular guy to notice me?”

He shoved her and exited the car.

“Dammit, Clarke. I was trying to be nice.”

“That’s what you get,” she smirked.

* * *

 

Inside the pub was wild. Sure, she was only eighteen, so she couldn’t drink, but even if she was of age she wouldn’t have seen the inside of an establishment like this. It was certainly not Abby-approved. There were big, deep booths to one side, pairs of pool tables and dartboards all over the open room, and a massive square of a bar smack-dab in the middle of the whole thing, the center stage of the circus.

And it was loud. Clarke didn’t know so much noise could be created in such a cramped space. There was yelling and clinking glasses and pool cue pops and fists slamming on tables, emphasizing a point. Under every individual moment of noise, there was a current of rumbling, of half-observed conversations floating over from the bar or the booths. So much was going on. Clarke could spend days wandering among the Amherst residents, listening to their lives.

Clarke must have stalled in the doorway marveling at the chaos, because Bellamy looped an arm over her shoulder and steered her towards a booth two thirds of the way back.

“Come on, princess, they’re over here.”

After rounding several corners and working their way to the back of the pub, Clarke saw them-- three guys on one side of a booth that looked incredibly familiar, though she couldn’t quite place them. As Bellamy and Clarke got closer, the one on the end, the big guy noticed them and smacked the wiry guy to alert him.

“Would you look who the cat dragged in,” he noted wryly, and Bellamy moved past her to shove the guy’s head.

“What do you want from me?” Bellamy asked. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“It’s a damn miracle!” The wiry guy next to the big one had a pair of snowboarding goggles perched on his nest of black hair, sticking in all directions.

“Shut up, Jasper,” Bellamy said, snapping the dude’s goggles against his forehead. “I was here literally a week ago.”

“But we never see you,” Goggles whined, turning to the quietest one in the corner for support. Quiet just shrugged. He had shiny black hair flopping in his eyes and he stared deeply into the soda glass in front of him. Clarke instantly recognized a kindred spirit.

As she fully arrived at the booth, Clarke noticed someone else on the other side, blocked during their approach by the high walls of the booth. She was sweet-faced, with fluffy, curly chestnut hair framing her grin. Her smile reminded Clarke of Madi in that it produced its own light.

“And princess!” Goggles cheered, noticing her at last. “How are you, your highness?”

Bellamy cuffed him again. “Don’t call her that.”

Clarke noticed that Bellamy failed to mention that he calls her that.

“Hi,” Clarke said shyly, not sure what to say. A chorus of salutations volleyed back at her.

“Clarke, these are my friends. This is Miller—“ he gestured to the big guy on the end “—and Jasper—“ Goggles “—Monty—“ Quiet “—and this is Gina.”

Clarke was thrown for a moment. Gina. Wasn’t that the girl that Bellamy didn’t want to see the video of the two of them? She could hardly begin to process that before Gina stood and wrapped her in a big hug.

It was one of the hugs that tall people give height-challenged individuals: her arms wrapped over Clarke’s shoulders and her hands landed on Clarke’s back, completed with comforting pressure. It was something Clarke was used to as a shorter person, and she was smiley and lovely. Why wouldn’t Clarke like her?

Gina and Clarke disentangled and Gina held her at arms length, in that way close female friends often do—distance to speak, but still connected physically.

“Clarke,” Gina gushed. “So nice to met you. Good to put a person to a Snapchat.”

Gina turned to Bellamy and kept talking, “she’s pretty, Bellamy. The men of Amherst would it eat her up. God.” She paused, throwing a hand over her mouth. “Unless you’re not, I mean, I don’t mean to presume. I just think you’re absolutely beautiful.”

“Um, thanks,” Clarke replied. She was so unused to the comfort of female support that it was completely foreign to her, but she liked it nonetheless. There was something incredibly satisfying in having a hype woman to tell you that you’re fabulous. Clarke felt like she already had it in Gina, even though she’d known her for mere minutes.

“Bell,” Gina said, letting go of Clarke to grab hold of Bellamy’s shoulders, “She’s perfect. You’re so lucky. To have this opportunity, I mean. I always said you had it in you.”

“To be a pretty figure skater?” Jasper asked, and this time Miller cuffed him, nearly sending Jasper’s goggles flying.

Gina laughed, a carefree and warm laugh that encapsulated sunset. “To succeed wherever he tried.”

“Thanks, G,” Bellamy murmured, and pulled her arms fully around her neck to grab her waist tightly, kissing her.

It was like being in the Matrix. Clarke had an instant realization that it was like being in the Matrix. She had never seen _The Matrix_ , but based on popular knowledge she assumed this was what it felt like. Everything was completely normal, and then a glitch in programming sent a sharp ripple through the whole of the universe. The ripple threw her backwards, crashing into the server behind her and upending a tray of beers. It shattered all the windows and car alarms went off outside. People playing pool noted the shifting of the balls, and the darts enthusiasts missed the board completely despite their skill. People at booths held onto the tables for even footing, as the tchotchkes on the wall rattled and fell from their nails.

In Clarke’s head at least. In reality it was just a niggling feeling of wrongness as Bellamy wrapped his arms around what was clearly his girlfriend. She didn’t even know why it felt as if the world had shifted instantly. Bellamy and Gina broke apart, and Clarke slid far into the booth, right next to Monty staring deep into his drink.

“So what’s Bellamy like with you?” Jasper asked, ever the person to break ice. “When the toe picks are on?”

“Do you want me to be nice or be true?” Clarke felt herself snark back. It was her only response, a gut reaction, and she went with it, like always.

“True,” all three guys said in unison. Bellamy, sitting on the other side of Gina from Clarke, put his forehead on the table.

“You guys,” Bellamy moaned.

“I mean, I’m sure it doesn’t surprise you that he’s completely perfectionist and controlling,” Clarke started, and all three laughed.

“That’s our boy,” Miller called, reaching over the table to slap Bellamy on the shoulder. “Mr. Mom.”

“He once told me to tie my laces during a game,” Monty said, quiet enough that only Clarke heard.

“Thanks, Clarke,” Bellamy rolled his eyes.

“But he’s also good,” Clarke continued. “As good as any guy who’s studied figure skating for years. He’s my first partner for skating, but he’s also one of the better ones. He’s really good.”

“That’s my boy!” Jasper yelled, though Miller knocked him back for it.

The waitress arrived, and asked if they needed anything.

“Two beers,” Bellamy requested, “and a, um—“ He turned to Clarke, with a blank expression.

“Shirley, if you can,” Clarke answered, and the waitress laughed.

“Oh sure, hon. I’ll have it back in a jif.”

“A Shirley Temple?” Bellamy asked her, skeptically.

“I like the cherries. Back off,” Clarke shot back.

“Damn, Bell,” Miller said. “This one’s a firecracker. You should keep her. If only to keep your ego in check.”

Bellamy laughed, wrapped an arm over Gina to flick Clarke in the temple and the whole group dissolved into giggles. Even quiet Monty.

The whole night was like that. Clarke would tell stories of Bellamy in figure skates, or during their time strapped together, and the whole group would turn to mock him. And then Bellamy would shoot back with a dig at her privileged lifestyle and Clarke would laugh until her sides hurt, knowing that it was all in good fun. They teased each other and brought up old stories and grudges to amuse her: “Remember that time in grade school when Bellamy thought penguins would drown because of global warming?” “Remember that time Monty and Jasper almost started a _Breaking Bad_ pot den in Jasper’s garage?” “Remember that time Miller ate thirteen hot dogs at homecoming and spent halftime vomiting in the port-a-potty?”

The stories were endless, and it gave Clarke a spectrum of views on Bellamy, as the child, the teenager, and now the man. But it also endeared her to the guys and Gina. They were kind and silly and wonderful. She hadn’t really had a “group” of friends before—only individual friends in ones and twos. A whole lot of people accepting her immediately was startling and comforting all at once. So while she listened to Jasper and Bellamy fight—for apparently the umpteenth time—about who really got to the tower first during Senior Week, Clarke just sat back and enjoyed the real people surrounding her.


	8. The Drop

Clarke was awakened by a pillow to the face and a body jumping on top of her. In the reserved household of the Griffin family, these sorts of things didn’t happen. Even with the unpredictability of Madi Griffin, these sorts of things didn’t happen. So Clarke did what any sane person would do in such a situation. She screamed. Loudly.

“Jesus, fuck, Clarke. What the hell?” Clarke opened her eyes to see Jasper Jordan, Bellamy’s skinny friend that she met last night at the pub. She looked around, noticing she was tucked in on a flattened Ikea futon in a somewhat familiar living room. Suddenly it all came flooding back to her.

After many beers—had by all except Clarke and Monty, who didn’t turn twenty-one until next week—the gang had returned to Miller’s apartment for a rousing game of Charades. This turned into Pictionary, which turned into Jasper just drawing dicks over and over, which turned into Miller and Bellamy holding him down and force-feeding him pickle juice. Honestly, Clarke was there and she didn’t even follow that jump. She and Gina, confused by the boys’ antics, had raided Miller’s chocolate stash and were balancing Reese’s Pieces on each other’s noses. One minute they were arguing about dick drawings, the next, Bellamy had run into the kitchen, grabbed the pickle jar from the fridge, placed a kiss on each of their foreheads, and bolted right out.

With all the excitement, it was no surprise that they all crashed in Miller’s living room. What Clarke still failed to understand was why a pillow-armed Jasper was awakening her at some ungodly hour.

“Why on earth—“ she started, and then noticed the bustle around her. The whole group was putting on hats and shoes, getting ready to go. To go where, that remained to be seen.

“Breakfast,” Monty called, hopping on one foot to secure his sneaker.

At that moment, the bedroom door opened, as Bellamy walked in pulling on a shirt. Clarke got a flash of abs, which were quickly covered by slender arms wrapping around his chest. Gina’s head appeared over his shoulder.

“Come on, princess,” he chuckled. “Rise and shine.”

“There is breakfast to eat! Monsters to slay! A day to seize!” Jasper proclaimed, standing tall on the futon, fist in the air.

“Too early,” Miller grumbled, smacking Jasper upside the head as he passed. Clarke pulled on her sweater and boots, and they all piled into Bellamy and Miller’s cars.

Clarke took a quick nap during the ride, and woke with a start as they reached their destination. They were at, from what Clarke could tell, a sixties space-themed diner. The pink neon sign called it “The Dropship”, and retro-blue signage around the windows advertised meat loaf and milkshakes. It looked like a place stopped in time.

They unloaded from the cars and entered the diner. If possible, the diner was more on-brand on the inside. Metal covered most vertical surfaces, and retro alien décor and spaceship memorabilia cluttered the walls. There was a counter with spinny stools and deep plastic booths with little flying saucers patterned on the tabletops.

A severe looking woman approached as they walked through the door.

“Hey Indra,” Bellamy greeted her, and the woman cracked a small smile.

“If it isn’t the delinquents,” Indra answered, raising an eyebrow.

“You forget to pay your bill _one time_ ,” Miller grumbled.

“I heard that,” Indra replied. “And who are you? You’re not usually with this crowd.”

“This is Clarke,” Jasper told her. “She’s Bellamy’s skating partner.”

“His skating partner? Since when do you need a partner for hockey?”

Bellamy covered his face, clearly attempting to sink into the floor, but as phase-shifting technology had not yet been invented, he stayed firmly put.

“He’s figure skating. With Clarke,” Jasper said to Indra as she led them to a booth.

“I see,” Indra responded, in the tone that skeptical adults always speak. “What’ll it be?”

“Bloody Marys for the table!” Jasper exclaimed, fist hitting the table.

“Absolutely not,” Bellamy told him, pushing Jasper’s fist back into his lap. “Water.”

“Listen to Bellamy, cheri,” Indra held Jasper’s face in the crook of her hand, then sauntered off with the regality of a queen.

“You guys come here often?” Clarke asked.

“Are you trying to hit on us as a group?” Bellamy returned. Clarke only smacked him in response.

* * *

 

Despite the mountains of bacon and waffles they consumed, Clarke and Bellamy were only five minutes late to practice. With the tension of the past week relieved, they started pulling it all together at a breakneck pace.

Two weeks later, they walked into the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago, skating bags over one shoulder and suitcases rolling behind. Clarke felt like the lead in a heist movie, with their gang fanning out behind them as they all walked through the revolving doors. It was a pretty excellent feeling.

Abby, Kane, and Madi were on Clarke’s left, and Jasper, Octavia, Monty, and Miller on Bellamy’s right. Gina couldn’t get off work for the weekend and would be watching at home, but Miller had insisted that there was no way that they would miss Bellamy’s professional skating debut. Jasper had been working on his signs for weeks. Sure, the one he landed on just said “Go Bellamy + Clarke” but there were dozens of rejected posters in a pile in his kitchen.

Just as Clarke was about to direct their entourage to reception, a familiar holler shot through the air. She turned to see the shady lady herself, Raven Reyes, barreling towards her. Clarke had just enough time to drop her bags and prepare before Raven made contact, slamming Clarke into an enormous hug.

“Hey Raven,” Clarke greeted her, voice muffled by ponytail of Reyes hair that had landed into her open mouth. Raven released her and gave her an up-down.

“We haven’t seen each other in six months and you say hey? _Hey_?”

“I was training!” Clarke replied, rolling her eyes. “You were too!”

At this moment Raven seemed to notice the mass of people around them, biting down her retort.

“Raven, this is Bellamy,” Clarke introduced them, and the two shook hands. “My skating partner. Raven’s a friend from my solo days.”

“Nice to meet you,” Bellamy told her, grinning warmly. _So he_ can _meet someone normally_ , Clarke noted.

“Likewise,” Raven smiled in return, the mysterious smile with no teeth that always looked sultry on her. Their eye contact was prolonged and enigmatic.

Bellamy coughed, breaking eye contact. “I’m going to check in with the gang. Catch up with us soon.”

“Okay,” Clarke nodded, and their gang departed for the reception desk.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Raven sighed, “Well break me off a piece of that!”

“Raven!” Clarke exclaimed.

“What? You’ve been training with an ass that fine and you didn’t even send me a courtesy Snap story? I am betrayed. Betrayed, I say!” Raven adopted a Southern drawl, even stronger than her normal lilt, and started fanning herself like a debutante on a fainting couch. All she was missing was her hoop skirt and fascinator.

“Turn it down, Scarlett,” Clarke snorted.

“You’re not hitting that, are you?”

“He’s my partner.” While not exactly the answer to Raven’s question, it was about as close as she was going to get to one.

“So you’ll grant your blessing?”

“I mean, I don’t have any hold on him, but I feel like his girlfriend Gina might have a problem with it.”

“Ugh, figures,” Raven scoffed, dropping the _Gone with the Wind_ routine. “Boys like that are always attached to their high school sweethearts.”

“I didn’t tell you they were high school sweethearts,” Clarke pointed out.

“Didn’t have to. He’s got that ‘All-American Boy’ vibe. I bet he used to have a lawn-mowing business.”

“Raven, be nice.”

“I have absolutely no reason to be.”

At that moment Bellamy returned, carrying pairs of room keys.

“We’re all on the twelfth floor,” he told her, handing over a set.

“I’ll let you unpack, but we are all catching up later,” Raven told them, wandering away with a twirl. “I will not take no for an answer!”

Once she was safely away, Bellamy and Clarke headed for the elevators.

“Raven sure is…” Bellamy trailed off, looking for the right words. His face seemed to be working overtime for the lack of vocabulary, since he went through about four different expressions without a word leaving his mouth.

“Yup.”

“But it’s great. She and Miller would get along.”

Clarke laughed. “If we’re very, very lucky, that was the only time they will ever be in the same room.”

* * *

 

That night Clarke kept to herself in her hotel room, wrapped in blankets and watching on-demand movies. She convinced Raven to join her, and when Abby knocked on the door later on, the two were wrapped up under the covers like little burritos. The competition started early the next morning though, so Raven peaced early and Clarke tucked in.

The next morning at the skating center, Clarke was livid. Her leotard was properly hairsprayed to her butt, but her tights under were still riding up. Her hair clip was staying in her ponytail, but for the life of her she couldn’t keep this one strand out of her face. And though she herself knocked on Bellamy’s door and walked to the skating center with him, he had yet to appear from the men’s locker room for warmups.

“Clarke, he will be here. He’s here. He should be out any minute,” Abby assured her, having the good sense not to put her hands on Clarke’s shoulders to calm her.

“What the hell is he even doing in there?” Clarke asked, exasperated.

“I’ll go check,” Marcus added helpfully, hustling off in the direction of the men’s locker rooms.

“We need the warmup time,” Clarke insisted to Abby.

“You will be fine,” Abby replied, the calmest and kindest she’d been in months. “You two have put in the work and the time. Just trust the ice.”

Clarke snorted, but was saved from replying by Marcus’ return, hauling Bellamy behind. His custody was handed off as Clarke looped him under the arm and practically dragged him out onto the ice, where the rest of the competing couples were already lifting and jumping, testing the feel of their frozen medium.

“What took you so long?” Clarke threw over her shoulder as they started a brisk lap around the rink. “Don’t tell me you were barfing or something.”

Bellamy was silent in response, but passed her and completed a triple toe loop instead. It was crisp in execution, arms tucked tightly into his chest, then thrust out on his landing. He looped around back to Clarke’s side, who merely huffed.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Clarke responded petulantly.

“No, princess, I didn’t hurl. Thanks for the confidence. Go on, do a triple, then. I just did.”

“No, I can’t.”

“What is it you used to say? ‘triple lutzes are the best warmups in the world’?” Bellamy suggested, skating in front of her backwards. He put his hands out, presumably so she would take them, but Clarke just swatted them away.

“Key words being ‘used to’, stick boy,” Clarke shot back, adding, “and stop watching old interviews of me!”

“Oh please,” Bellamy teased. “Those old pageant broadcasts you used to do? They’re hilarious!”

“Let’s just warm up,” Clarke reminded him, taking his hand and starting them into one of their more complicated sequences. The focus of their routine elements silenced their banter, and before she knew it, they were clearing the rink for the start of short programs.

Now they only had to wait. They were third-to-last, so Clarke had to stand watching the monitors through a _Figaro_ , three separate arrangements of _Carmen_ , and a surprisingly stunning instrumental of _Skyfall_. The music, that is. The skating had a certain, _je ne sai_ -sloppy to it. Call her catty.

The music selection overall was rough. The ISU had already announced that starting next year they would allow competitors to skate to music with lyrics. It seemed like everyone was just biding their time until then. Clarke had never been so happy. If she never had to hear the _Carmen_ suite ever again, it would still be too soon. Granted, she skated to _Carmen_ at her first Nationals ages ago. But she liked to think she didn’t know any better. She was little. These were grown-ass people. Clarke assumed it was what directors had to deal with when every young ingénue and her sister wanted to sing “Think of Me” for auditions. Exhausting.

When it was finally their turn, they got the all clear from the technician standing by, and took their place at the edge of the ice. Bellamy turned to her.

“Ready, princess?”

“You bet your ass,” Clarke smirked, a twinkle in her eye.

“Alright then,” he answered, smacking her soundly on the butt and skating out onto the rink.

Clarke was completely startled that she didn’t move for a moment. It was like time froze. She just stood there, blankly, watching him skate past her. Then her eyes narrowed and she powered to catch up with Bellamy. They both landed at center together, spiraling around each other on the ice before landing in their starting positions, Bellamy’s arms wrapped around her waist.

“Dick,” Clarke muttered, rolling her eyes just the slightest.

“Trying to get you psyched, Clarke,” Bellamy grinned.

“Really?”

“Or pissed. I know you love being vengeful.” He wasn’t wrong. But their music started, and Clarke and Bellamy began the sweeping beginning of their short program.

Clarke would like it noted for the record, that this music was not her idea. Not in the least. If given the option to skate to this music, or a live troupe of freshmen clarinetists, she would pick the adolescent woodwinds. But the day that Abby came to the rink with this track, she had been glowing, insisting that this track would help bring their short program into contention. And that morning Clarke had already argued with her at the house and Bellamy at the rink twice, so when Bellamy shrugged and said fine, who was she to argue?

So here she was, at her first Regionals competition as a pairs skater, skating to the _Titantic_ soundtrack.

To be fair, she put her foot down. There is not a hint of “My Heart Will Go On”. They couldn’t avoid the stereotypical pan-flute whispering in the beginning, but for the most part it’s just a sweeping score they’re skating to.

Clarke and Bellamy nailed their twizzles and a big sweeping cross without problem, and the two prepped for their next lift element. As soon as they decided on the music, Bellamy had insisted on this lift being in the piece. He was a complete moron about it, if you asked her, but he showed actual initiative about this choreography moment, so Clarke climbed up to stand on his bent thighs. Bellamy’s arms on her legs held her from falling forward as they made a big arc across the length of the rink.

Just like that, Clarke and Bellamy were reenacting the infamous “don’t let go Jack” moment, and she would be annoyed if it weren’t so incredibly fun. Yes, she still rolled her eyes and scoffed at the sappy romanticism, but it did feel like flying. The wispy hair she hadn’t been able to pin down fluttered in her periphery as she swept through the air. As they dismounted, Clarke added an extra twist to her landing, flicking her arms out as they went into their synchronized section.

“Nice one, princess,” Bellamy said, something only she could hear.

Clarke grinned, flashing her teeth.

“How about we do triples on the next one?”

Her heart stopped. “No.”

“Why? I know you can do them,” Bellamy nudged, as the two flew around the curve.

“It’s not ready for competition,” Clarke told him, and he just scoffed. “It’s not.”

“Come on. Be brave, princess. We’ve got this.”

“No!” If the swell of the music hadn’t been so loud Clarke was sure someone would have heard her. They flipped and started skating backwards.

“Clarke, I’m gonna do a triple this next time. You can do the regular double, but it’s gonna look pretty dumb.”

Clarke didn’t know what possessed her. Maybe it was her spite again. Maybe it was the completely corny strings swell in the music that led up to their jumps. She was overcome with an insane confidence that she could land that triple. And so she decided to go for it. Bellamy and Clarke hit the ice with their picks and launched into the air, completing three turns in two synchronized triple toe loops. And then Clarke landed.

She didn’t know what made her believe she would land a triple in competition when she was still spotty about landing them back home. She was being cocky. Maybe Bellamy brought it out in her. But she didn’t land clean. Technically she didn’t even land, by ISU standards. Her landing left leg crumbled under her, still not strong enough to handle a full short program and triple toes, and she fell to the ice.

The music kept going, obviously, but to Clarke the world went silent. She was mortified. She was in pain. And she wasn’t done yet.

Bellamy turned back and offered his hand, and the two finished their final thirty seconds of choreography. They landed in their final pose, Clarke dipped in Bellamy’s arms, and the music stopped.

There was actual silence for a moment, before the applause began. It was respectable, but not overwhelming. Honestly it felt like pity clapping if anything to Clarke. The audience had just watched the Great Clarke Griffin stage her comeback to figure skating in pairs and she fell on a jump.

Bellamy lifted her to standing and the two skated off, thousand-watt smiles plastered on her face as she waved to the crowd. She took her guards from her mother and walked to the scoring bench.

They waited.

And waited.

Fifth.

They were in fifth place. Not nearly enough to get them to Nationals. _You still have the long program_ , Abby would remind them, but to Clarke all it felt like was failure. If they had landed those triples they would have been unbeatable. It was a clean program otherwise.

Suddenly Clarke felt cold. Her skirt kept rustling against her thighs and reminding her how little clothing she was wearing in this frigid competitive hellscape.

“Let’s go change,” Abby suggested, and the two of them shuffled away at her suggestion, in the direction of the locker rooms. “Come to the lobby when you’re ready.”

Clarke waved a hand over her back to confirm she heard her, continuing her shuffle towards the door at the end of the hall.

She felt Bellamy’s hand on her shoulder. “Listen, Clarke—“

She whipped around, pushing him back into the wall with the sheer blaze in her eyes.

“No, you listen,” Clarke shot back. “I said I wasn’t ready. I _said_ it wasn’t there. We had a set of synchronized doubles planned. We have been _practicing_ synchronized doubles. For weeks. That is what we agreed on. But does that matter to high-and-mighty, fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants Bellamy Blake? No. Because he just wants to push people. Every single day, you push people. Even when they aren’t ready. Especially when they aren’t ready.”

“I should have listened to you—“ he started, but Clarke cut him off again.

“You should have. Because I think I know my body and my skillset better than you. I don’t need you egging me on while we are actually performing. Do you think it’s fun for me? Falling all the time? Over and over? Having to pull back my tricks because I don’t have them anymore? I used to be able to land triples in my sleep. They were easy. And now I have to fight. For every. Single. One.”

Clarke looked down, breathing in deeply.

“Abby always says this partnership is about trust,” she continued, “and I used to scoff at that, because yeah, of course it requires trust. I used to think I did trust you, because I trusted that you wouldn’t let me fall from a lift. But congratulations. You taught me something new today: there’s more than one way to drop someone.”

Clarke turned away and stormed down the hallway towards the locker room. Her face was getting warm and puffy; she could just feel it. She needed to get out of here, and away from him. After all the humiliation he had just thrust upon her, he did not get the satisfaction of seeing her cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all for reading, and for sticking through it despite my sporadic updates.  
> Please Comment & Kudos for continuing updates. I do this for y'all.


	9. Our Lady Sandra

When Clarke left the locker room, Bellamy was nowhere to be found, and that was just fine by her. After she told him off, it took a long time for her to get her grips back. She kept telling herself not to cry, but the futility of trying not to cry only produced more tears. Returned to some level of normalcy—or at least the normalcy that didn’t look like she had just bawled her eyes out—she donned her sweats and threw her bag over her shoulder.

In fact, there was no one. Bellamy wasn’t in the hallway, thank God, but neither was Abby or Marcus. The hallway was basically deserted. Clarke let out a deep breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. Without friends or family to put on a brave face, she could just wallow in her failure and escape to her room. Which she promptly did.

Her branded, pristine sweats were traded for her coziest, oldest sweater and flannel pant ensemble. The sweats made her look casual and athletic, but with the trendy styles and brand names, they never felt truly comfortable. Only her old Boston University sweatshirt could make her happy after a rough day at the rink. And this one had probably been the roughest.

Clarke found a channel playing exclusively reruns of old Sandra Bullock movies. This was apparently leading up to _Practical Magic_ that evening, to stay in the Halloween-month theme. Instantly she committed to the marathon for the evening. It was a shame she didn’t have any snacks.

True, Clarke was a self-professed “rom-com hater”, but with nothing to do and the tempting promise of the best feminist movie of all time on the horizon, she would wait it out. Surprisingly, she didn’t dislike them. Double surprisingly, she actually kind of liked them. Perhaps she had only seen bad rom-coms, because Queen-of-the-Genre Sandra actually played relatively feminist women. For the stars of romantic comedies, these were women taking care of their children, thinking of their careers, their immigration status, and overall not concerning themselves too much with their romantic interest until the unforeseen circumstances popped up. Heaven help her, she would never admit this to anyone, but that day curled up in the hotel bed, Clarke Griffin was a bit of a convert.

At least for today. She reserved the right to go back to her patriarchy-smashing ways if she chose.

Logically she knew someone would come for her sometime, but at the moment it seemed like a “cross that bridge when you get to it” kind of thing. And that bridge did not exist in _Hope Floats_ , _Two Weeks Notice_ , or _While You Were Sleeping_. So Clarke burrowed under the covers.

That bridge predictably took the form of her mother, Abby Griffin, knocking on her door several hours later.

Birdee and Justin had just started dancing at the hoedown, and had Clarke allowed her mother entrance it would have been interesting to see her reaction. Before her dad passed, Jake Griffin would tease his wife about swooning over Harry Connick Jr. regularly. When Clarke was little she didn’t get it. She was definitely more of a Backstreet Boys kind of girl. But now, hot damn, she understood it a little. Maybe if she ever took a vacation and visited Raven in Raleigh, she would meet a lilting gentleman the likes of Mr. Harry Connick Jr.

“Clarke? Are you awake?” Abby called from the other side of the door.

Clarke didn’t answer, praying that if she feigned slumber her mother would give up.

“Well, Marcus and Madi and I are going to go down to dinner. You’re welcome to join us if you want.”

It was nice of her to offer, honestly, but Clarke wasn’t in the mood. Besides, they wouldn’t understand. There was only one person who understood her anymore, and that was Sandra.

After a moment Clarke heard Abby’s footsteps recede and she was alone once more. She finished _Hope Floats_ , Justin swept Birdee off her feet, and the marathon continued as she began to feel one with her bed’s comforter. Save the slight difference in pasty hue, no one could tell where the blanket ended and Clarke began. It was a true zen, to become a puffy bedspread. Then someone knocked again.

“Clarke?” It was Raven. She had to admit, this was the person most likely to get her ass out of the bed. But still, not going to happen. Clarke had decided that she lived here now. Her and Sandy.

“Clarke,” Raven tried again, “You get your cute little booty out of here. I know that today was rough, but you’ll turn it around tomorrow. For now, I need to catch up on your life and hang with my bestest friend, and it’s kind of hard to do when she’s on the other side of a wall.”

Clarke almost got up. And then she remembered what leaving the bed meant. It meant facing all of the people who watched her eat it on (semi)-national TV. It meant facing Raven, who was the physical manifestation of who Clarke used to be before her injury. And most of all, it meant facing Bellamy, someone so reckless and inconsiderate that he jeopardized their chances to advance.

Even thinking about facing Bellamy again made her blood boil. Logistically speaking, she knew she would have to face him soon, but then again, she might just exist here, in the hotel bed. She might not have a corporeal state in the world anymore. She could just be a comforter and Sandra Bullock movies. That seemed like the most likely option.

“Fine,” Raven said at last, after a prolonged silence. Then Clarke heard Raven’s muffled command through the wall. It sounded suspiciously like, “You talk to her, jackass.”

“Clarke.” She would know those deep tones anywhere.

“Go away.”

“Clarke, open the door. I need to talk to you.”

“I said, go away.” He was not going to just waltz up to her door with his queso-sauce of a voice and expect her to go faint. Granted, he got her to speak where Abby and Raven failed, but that was mostly anger.

“Clarke,” Bellamy repeated, “Open the damn door. Come on.”

“Why? You’ve already destroyed my career. What else could you possibly want?”

“Don’t be a drama queen, princess,” Bellamy answered, voice gravelling as it always did when he was annoyed. Yes, she was being dramatic. That’s how she liked it.

“Insulting me will not work well for you,” she called back, rolling her eyes.

“Clarke, I’m sorry. Please open the door. I want to explain.”

She scoffed. “Explain what? I don’t think you need to explain. Just leave me alone. I’m busy.”

There was a long pause. For a brief moment she thought he had listened to her and Raven & Bellamy had departed. She harrumphed and turned back to watch Margaret Tate run around a backyard with an American Eskimo puppy raised over her head like Simba in _The Lion King_.

“I know you’re watching _The Proposal_ ,” she heard from behind the door. Just as she was about to ask how he could possibly know such a thing, he continued. “I have a teenage sister. Do you know how many times I’ve seen that movie? We almost adopted a Kevin.”

Clarke snorted. The idea of Bellamy walking a fluffy white puppy like the one onscreen was both adorable and completely unrealistic. He was totally a Labrador man.

“I’m just going to sit here in the hallway until you open the door princess,” he called from the other side of the door. “I have nowhere to be.”

Now _that_ was truly laughable. There were absolutely other places for him to be. With Miller, Jasper, and Monty, getting up to antics? On the phone with Gina? Talking to other coaches or teams and networking? There were plenty of places.

But he chose to sit on the floor outside her hotel door.

She sighed. She supposed she’d have to let him in now.

Thankfully there was not a soul in the hotel room but her. If there was anyone in the room, they would have whipped out their phones and recorded the slapstick routine that was her unearthing from under the covers. There was flailing, there was tripping, and she landed on the floor with a thump.

Clarke shuffled to the door, opened it, got a quick chuckle out of Bellamy falling backward into the room, and returned to her cozy blankets. Wrapped and snuggled back up again, she looked to see Bellamy standing right inside the door, shifting his weight. In the kindest gesture of this millennium, Clarke lifted the corner of the blanket pile, offering him a place in her comforter warren. He crawled up under the covers and burrowed down as well, doing the same shimmying motion she did to get comfortable.

They didn’t talk. For a while. They just watched _The Proposal_ silently. Just as the unnecessary stripper scene began, Bellamy spoke.

“Clarke, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I pushed you to do it, and I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” he repeated.

“Yeah, _okay_ , “ she muttered. “It’s not about the jump.”

“Of course this is about the jump, Clarke. What the fuck are you talking about, ‘this isn’t about the jump’?”

Clarke turned to him. “Okay, it is about the jump, but it’s not. I’m not mad at you that I can’t do a triple. I’m not crazy. But I’m mad that you think figure skating is something you can just _do_. This isn’t just a hobby, Bellamy; this is my job. My _life_. It’s something I have to fight for every day. Even before I broke my leg, I still had to fight for it every single day. Now I just have to fight harder.”

“I know it’s hard—“

Clarke pressed through. “It’s not just hard. It has to be perfect. Figure skating is planned down to the inch. Everything is analyzed and considered. Every crystal on my costumes is managed, to create the balance of sparkle with weight. There is a reason for everything, so you have to stick to the plan.”

“I get that.”

“This is why Abby didn’t want to train you, and why I don’t like hockey players. You have routes, you have plays, but you’re trained to think outside the box and to try new things every time. You could have practiced a play one hundred times during the week, but during the game you decide to break left to avoid a defenseman. Figure skating doesn’t have that wiggle room. Competition is a representation of the work.”

“Do you love skating?”

Clarke was not expecting that. Of all the things he could have followed her speech with, that was not the anticipated response.

“Of course I do,” she answered.

“I’m serious. When was the last time you just enjoyed skating. When it wasn’t a job, but you just had fun.”

“’Fun’ has nothing to do with it.”

“Yeah it does. Those triples today on the rink? That was fun. I was trying to loosen you up. You’re so strict in your routines, you forget to have fun.”

“I have fun,” she insisted.

“Yeah, when you and Gina are balancing M&Ms on your noses or you’re talking to Raven, but when you’re on the rink, you clam up.”

She thought for a moment. When was the last time she felt free during a competition? When was the last competition that didn’t feel like fight-or-flight? It had to be before her dad died. He made sure she was having fun, and expressing the joy of skating in her routines. She’d lost that a bit when she lost him.

“I’m trying,” she told him slowly, looking down at her fingernails. “It’s, it’s hard.”

“It’s hard for me too, princess,” he said. “I’m not a natural, like you, but I try to have fun with it.”

“Okay,” Clarke said finally. “I’ll try.”

They shared a companionable silence, and then Bellamy stood.

“Okay princess, let’s go,” he said.

“What? No. I’m watching a movie.”

“Oh, please. Margaret and Andrew get ousted by the immigration guy, Grandma Annie fakes a heart attack, and Andrew goes all the way back to their office to tell Margaret how much he loves her,” Bellamy outlined. “Now come on, let’s go.”

Clarke threw a pillow at him, which he easily dodged. “Rude.”

“Come _on_ , princess.”

“I’m not watching for the plot, I’m watching for my girl Sandra,” Clarke insisted, and this time it was Bellamy’s turn to snort.

“Raven, Miller, Jasper, and Monty are at this moment descending to the hotel bar, ready to chill and enjoy the evening. Do you really want to miss that?”

Clarke rolled out of her blanket pile and started rummaging through her suitcase. “Fine. I’m coming, stick boy. Give me five minutes.”

“Why?”

“I need to change. I’m not wearing these clothes in public,” she explained, rolling her eyes.

“You look great,” Bellamy replied, and Clarke brushed it off.

“I look like a hobo. Five minutes, I promise.”

“Okay,” he conceded, and the two smiled at each other for a moment. It felt like a salve on the wound of this afternoon’s fall and fight. Things weren’t okay just yet, but they were going to be. She felt a rush of warmth tingling through her chest.

Bellamy exited the hotel room and Clarke looked in earnest for something to wear down to the hotel bar. With any luck, one of those straight skating boys would hit on her and she could forget the warmth in her chest.

Clarke found the perfect top and pants to wear. If all else failed, Raven and the hockey boys would make her laugh. They were good at that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks y'all! Remember to comment & kudos if you enjoyed it <3


	10. Come Back

When Bellamy was finally able to drag Clarke down to the bar, she almost felt like a human. No longer the embodiment of a puffy hotel comforter, she was wearing actual make-up. On impulse she had put on the strappy heels she had stuffed in the bottom of her suitcase. They made her ass look fantastic, if she did say so herself. In general, she felt amazing. She didn’t know it when Bellamy tried to get her to leave her room, but getting glammed up and looking fabulous was the perfect cure for her wallowing.

They quickly spotted Raven. The bombshell was leaning against the corner of the bar, with a cadre of admirers at a respectable distance. They were all close enough to make a move, but seemed to be in a collective standoff. None of them were actually talking to her, but it was clear at least ninety percent wanted nothing more than to be her conversational companion for the evening. Clarke flitted past Raven’s orbit of admirers to tap her on the shoulder.

“Oh thank god,” Raven exclaimed, turning to throw her arms around Clarke. “I was worried. I didn’t think he would get you to come down.”

“He almost didn’t.” Clarke grinned at Jasper over Raven’s shoulder. His ski goggles were reliably perched on his head and he was swirling what she thought might be a cider, raising it in toast to Clarke. “Where’s Monty? And Miller?”

Raven snorted. “They met the fourth-place pairs skaters around an hour ago.”

Clarke wracked her brain for their names, but Bellamy remembered first.

“Farmer and McIntyre?”

“Yup. That’s it. Bryan Farmer and Harper McIntyre. The four of them met an hour ago and Monty and Miller escorted them over to that booth,” Raven recapped, pointing to a low-lit booth on the far side of the bar. All four were crammed in the booth and speaking intently.

“That’s a four-way relationship waiting to happen,” Clarke observed, flagging down the bartender for a Shirley. “What do they even talk about?”

“I believe Monty and Harper have a similar taste in bubble-gum pop music, and Miller and Bryan were debating barbecue marinades. They stopped making sense after that.”

“I can’t believe I’m losing all my friends to figure skaters,” Jasper wallowed into his drink.

“You won’t lose us,” Bellamy reassured. He thumped Jasper soundly on the back.

Clarke added, “You certainly won’t lose Bellamy to me, JJ.” That gave Jasper a bit of a smile.

“Are you ready for tomorrow?” Jasper asked, in a true earnestness that Clarke couldn’t hate if she tried. On literally anyone else, that simple question would have sparked a shame spiral, but from Jasper, Clarke just wanted to hug him.

“We’ll be okay,” she told him, for some reason reassuring Jasper more than herself.

“Enough of this,” Raven interjected. “I’ve been talking to Jasper for the better part of an hour and been only getting monosyllables. Bellamy! Let’s chat!”

“Please dear god, no,” Clarke said. Bellamy immediately looked like a deer in the headlights. She had never seen him actually frightened before.

“Sure?” The way he said it was much more a question than an affirmation.

Raven had taken that as assent and began interrogating him. Clarke would have intervened but it was pretty comical. She got him to talk about Octavia and her hockey exploits and working at the rink, the ins and outs of being Clarke’s skating partner (an interesting mix of backhanded compliments and outright digs, if you asked Clarke), even the lowdown on Abby’s activity these days.

“You mean she’s not boning Kane?” Raven exclaimed.

“Please stop,” Clarke begged. “That is my mother.”

“You call her Abby.”

“Just because she doesn’t deserve the maternal fondness doesn’t mean I didn’t come out of her vagina. I’d rather not hear about its current resident.”

“But they’re _not_ ,” Raven reiterated.

“But they want to,” Bellamy smirked, which earned him a smack from Clarke.

“Stop!”

Raven wasn’t helping. “Clarke, it’s been over a year. Marcus is hot. Your mom isn’t the worst thing to look at. If they want to get freaky in their off-hours, who’s to stop them?”

“Me,” Clarke insisted. “I will become the single most effective cockblock the world has ever seen.”

Bellamy spat out his drink.

“You can try,” Raven said, “but I wouldn’t fight it. Just let her be happy.”

“Can we _please_ talk about something else?”

“Okay. When are the two of you going to give in to competitive skating stereotype and start dating?”

Clarke’s head dropped to the bar. “Raven! Seriously.”

Other than that, it was pretty fun. Raven got on great with Jasper and Bellamy, and once the elusive Monty and Miller returned with Brian and Harper, they all had a rip-roaring time. The last time Clarke had this much fun had to be the night with Bellamy’s friends at Dropkick. It felt good to just be happy. A little foreign, but good.

By the time it got truly late, particularly for those performing tomorrow, the group splintered off into twos and threes to return to hotel rooms. Raven, Clarke, and Bellamy headed up in the same elevator, and once she got off at nine, they were alone.

“That was fun,” Clarke said. “I’m glad I went.”

“Good.”

There was a pause, as if he was about to say something. She looked over and saw that he was already staring at her. It immediately made her shuffle, uncomfortable.

“What?”

“I’m sorry, Clarke.”

Well she hadn’t been expecting that. “What do you mean?”

“I was being cocky. Today. I didn’t take it as seriously as you do. But you deserve to have a partner who’s as committed to this as you are.”

She had no idea where this was going. They had already settled this earlier. He was a dick, and it had backfired, but she was forgiving him for it. They had a chance tomorrow to fix it, but now he was talking about commitment to the sport? This felt like, two minutes away from a TED talk. Or a resignation.

“Are you…quitting?” she asked. “Seriously?”

“No!” he answered quickly. “I’m not quitting. I’m saying I’m going to work harder at it. Be more serious. Like you. You’re really dedicated to skating, and I want to be like you. Focused.”

At that Clarke flushed all over, from her cheeks to her toes. It felt absolutely necessary to find that phasing technology and be able to melt into the elevator’s walls.

“I’m not, I’m just, you shouldn’t,” Clarke stuttered. “You can’t say things like that, Bellamy.”

“Why not? You are. You’re the best.”

It was the kindest thing he had said to her to date. Even through their weeks strapped at the hip, kindness was in short supply. Snark was abundant. Cooperation and civility were a necessity. But kindness was rare, and now there was an overload. Clarke felt her face get even hotter as she stared at him. His face, un-scrunched by sass, was really handsome.

He was. It was just a fact of the universe. Her recognizing his soft features and charming voice didn’t reflect at all upon her. It was just the recognition of reality. Calling Beyoncé the queen of music didn’t mean Clarke had to love her albums. Well, she did, but that was beside the point.

Her internal logic notwithstanding, Clarke’s body temperature kept increasing as the silence continued. She flushed redder and redder to the point that she probably resembled a stop sign. Namely, a “stop looking at me like that you handsome asshole I’m embarrassed” stop sign.

Before she could form the complete sentences to respond, the elevator dinged open and Bellamy started to exit.

“Night, princess,” he grinned, and walked down the hallway, leaving Clarke frozen in the elevator.

_Asshole._

* * *

 

Clarke did not sleep well. Between the pressure of the next day’s performance and her and Bellamy’s strange interaction in the elevator, she tossed and turned most of the night. When her alarm went off early in the morning, she let loose a string of expletives that would make Abigail Griffin blush and rolled out of bed.

When she arrived in the lobby to go to the rink, Bellamy was waiting for her. He was early. She stopped in her tracks, worried everything would be weird now. But then he looked up and spotted her.

“Hey princess, let’s go. The ice awaits,” he teased, and the tension she had been holding in since last night released.

They warmed up well on the rink, working through difficult sections and practicing lifts on this ice. When they had finished everything they needed to do, they just kept flying around, keeping limber and relaxed. There was something about today. With this new, improved, kinder Bellamy, she felt stronger.

As they rounded the end to go back, she asked him, “Could we try the throw again with a little more air? I want to try something.”

“Don’t hurt yourself.”

“I’ll do my best,” she teased, and he took hold of her waist to prep for the throw.

She rotated around him in orbit before he lifted her up, letting her fly through the air. Clarke tucked her arms in, pushing herself as much as she could towards that extra turn. One, two, three, and land. Her blade hit the ice and she glided out of the throw, arms aloft and beaming from ear to ear. Bellamy skated towards her and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tightly.

“That’s it, princess,” he encouraged, grinning himself.

“I want to do the triple in the program.”

“You sure?” he asked.

“Leave the worrying to me, stick boy,” she told him.

At that moment they were all called to clear the ice, as the long programs were about to begin. Clarke and Bellamy cleared with the others, shuffling towards the waiting area at the entrance.

Now came the waiting. It was just like yesterday, only this time the programs were twice as long. She watched pair after pair take the ice and begin their skate. The music was marginally better today, if only because there wasn’t a _Carmen_ to be heard. She smiled at Bryan and Harper as they took the ice, proceeding to perform a James Bond-inspired piece. They were good, and it was nice to have someone to cheer on while she waited, but Clarke was still nervous about their own program.

When the time finally arrived and their names were called, Clarke looked up at Bellamy. His bowtie was crooked, so she reached out instinctively and adjusted it. He smiled back reassuringly.

“Are you ready?”

“Yeah.” Clarke fidgeted with her ruffling green dress and took his hand, feeling the crush of ice under her blade.

They stuck to a theme: doomed movie loves. Clarke rolled her eyes a little when Abby suggested it, but it worked for them. It gave them strong emotions to play with. Their short skate music was immediately recognizable, but this music was less distinctive.

Her dress, however, was the key. Anyone on the planet (or at least, anyone who had seen the movie) would know the fluttering emerald-green dress Clarke was wearing. Sure, it looked a little different on Kiera Knightly than Clarke, but the _Atonement_ dress was iconic. And it looked fabulous while skating. She had caught herself in one of the mirrors during practice and it floated behind her with such a pretty motion. It made her seem more graceful than she felt while being thrown in the air or skating the straight-aways. She felt, dare she say it, _glamorous._

They did well. Something changed between yesterday and today, and it gave passion to their synchronicity. When the time came for the triple throw, Bellamy caught her eye and raised an eyebrow, making sure she wanted to do this. She gave him an imperceptible nod and pushed into his hands, starting the spin.

She landed it, third rotation and all. When she hit the ice and didn’t fall, a smile bigger than before glowed off of her face. It only took one glance at Bellamy to see he was sporting the same one. When they landed in their final pose, arms stretched towards each other, she about collapsed. They had done the best they could, even better than they imagined. Without thinking she threw herself a Bellamy, wrapping her arms around his waist.

“Good one, princess,” he spoke into her hair.

“Thanks.”

“Do you want to wave to the haters?”

Clarke laughed. “Of course I do. I’m fueled by spite.”

She let go and turned to the crowd, waving royally as they glided off the ice.

* * *

 

They got third. It was enough. They were going to nationals. When they landed their higher score after the long programs, he picked her up and spun her around, blades flying in a dangerous spiral. She was laughing the whole time.

After she changed and exited the locker area, Clarke was overtaken by a group of reporters. Doing interviews weren’t her favorite thing in the world, but Abby’s pointed look as she left to find Marcus said it all. _You need to do these interviews. And you need to be charming. It’s your only opportunity to recoup your career_.

So she stayed. And she talked. And she was charming, if the reporters’ smiles were any indication. They asked about her injury, about her transition to pairs’ skating, and anything else Clarke could possibly think of. She felt like she had answered a hundred questions.

“Yes, it has been hard,” Clarke told someone (Angie? Angela? Anne? Allison? Who knew, honestly) from the Tribune. “My mom is a tough coach. But she has my best interests at heart. She knows what I can do.”

“It seems like your work has paid off. Third place at your first regionals competition as a pairs’ skater. What is your secret?”

Clarke snorted internally, refusing to let it show in her face.

“I refused to quit. I’m committed to getting better and achieving success in whatever form of skating I can.”

“Does this mean that we can count on a return to singles competition?”

Clarke grinned, attempting to mimic the bared ferocity she used to exude back in the day. “I never rule anything out. Solo skating was my first love, and while I’m not competition-ready now, I can’t say I won’t be later.”

“You heard it here,” the reporter said, turning to her camera. “Clarke Griffin locked in a chance at nationals at her first pairs competition, but don’t count her out of the singles competition any time soon.”

“Out,” the camera guy told them. Clarke relaxed for a moment, looking for the next interview she was going to have to do, when a familiar mop of black hair caught her eye.

Bellamy. His furrowed brows told her that he had heard the interview and he wasn’t a fan. He shook his head and walked away, fading into the crowd.

“Bellamy!” Clarke called, leaving the bustle of the interview circle. She looked around to spot him, but he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, and for sticking with it.
> 
> Kudos and review, friends. They're not just discontinued granola bars and variety shows.


	11. The Way I'm Running

In hindsight, it had been a little rash to chase after him. As she ran, head swiveling through the crowd, she felt like a madwoman. She felt like a girl looking for her kidnapped sister in a Hallmark movie. Like there would be a 360 camera shot revolving around her while she yelled Bellamy’s name. Realizing that she had well and truly lost him in the bustle, Clarke stopped for a moment.

 _Why had he been so grumpy?_ They made it to nationals and were going to compete. It wasn’t as if he was the professional figure skater. He was a self-professed hockey player, and he might like the tricks, but the costumes and the drama were not his jam. He had told her so. Often. So what was up with the furrowed brow?

Clarke’s eyes narrowed. And after all he had done yesterday, coming late to warmups, pushing her to do jumps she wasn’t ready for, and egging her on, he didn’t have a leg to stand on. Where did he get off being all high and mighty? She had worked her ass off, and people wanted to talk to her. He didn’t need to play the kicked puppy routine with her, no way.

Clarke’s confusion was quickly converting into annoyance. Someone needed to tell him off. Namely Clarke. He was bound to be going back to the hotel. She just needed to march up to his room and demand a response.

Which she promptly did. Her aggravation blossomed as she arrived at the hotel, rapidly approaching his room. She didn’t think before pounding on the door with her fist. Clarke heard a yelp and a shuffle through the door. It opened from under her fist and she was staring Bellamy in the face.

Let the record reflect that Clarke did not think herself a ridiculous teeny-bopper. She did not partake of the makeover trope in teen movies, where seeing someone looking different completely changes your view on said person. The “nerdy-girl-removes-her-glasses-and-gets-hot” idea is something she actively avoids. Raven has heard many a rant about how “a pair of glasses couldn’t possibly act as a suitable disguise for Superman”. It was an intrinsic fallacy in culture, and Clarke did not understand it.

And yet.

When Bellamy opened the door, he looked completely different. He was wearing glasses. Clarke had never seen him wear glasses. They were a thick box-frame pair in a tortoiseshell pattern perched slightly crooked on his nose, giving him the air of a linguistics professor at Oxford. His usually manageable curls were an unruly mess as he leaned in the doorway, one hand clawed in his hair.

It was the glasses, but it was also the vibe. After her entire experience with Bellamy as a hockey bro and professional athlete, seeing a cozy, nerdy Bellamy was weird. But a good weird. The kind of weird that crushed her chest a little, blinking absently at him.

“What do you want?” he asked, and she actively had to remind herself what she came for. The point was to get him to stop being a dick and talk to her, dammit. She had to keep it together.

“Why did you run away? I was yelling your name,” Clarke started, hoping he would outright say what was bugging him. She hated beating around the bush to pull answers from people.

“Run, princess? I don’t run away from anything.” Bellamy raised his eyebrows and folded his arms across his chest.

Clarke shot back, “you totally did, you wuss.” She could feel one of their typical arguments brewing under the surface—one where neither was technically wrong, but they would fight to the death anyway. It wasn’t helping that those glasses made his amber eyes glow. The tortoiseshell of it all was completely unfair. It matched too well and it was making her self-conscious. She fidgeted under his gaze.

“Princess—“ he started to answer, before a woman’s voice came from behind him.

“Bell, who is it?”

“It’s Clarke,” he told her, and Bellamy turned to answer her, inadvertently revealing her to Clarke.

Gina.

Standing in a towel.

In Bellamy’s hotel room.

“Clarke!” Gina greeted, walking towards the doorway, grinning. “I saw you skate! You were amazing. I’m so excited for you guys!”

To be fair, Clarke loved Gina. She refused to be one of those catty girls who disliked women their guy friends were dating on principle. It wasn’t even a principled thing. She liked her. Gina was the kind of sweet that was endearing, not saccharine. She was funny, and Clarke had spent a decent amount of time with her since their evening balancing M&Ms on each other at Miller’s apartment. Her congratulating Clarke on their nationals qualification should have made Clarke smile.

Something must have been wrong with Clarke. Because instead of starting to talk to her, Clarke had nothing to say.

“I um, I have to, I have to… My mom, she’s probably looking, um, looking for me. I’ll see you, uh, see you later,” she stuttered, and walked down the hallway without saying goodbye.

She might have heard Bellamy call her name, but she didn’t look back. It was like someone else was controlling her body. The little alien in her brain kept pushing the left-foot, right-foot buttons, keeping her walking one foot in front of the other down the hall. She would be mad at that strange robotic feeling pushing her forward if she didn’t feel like she couldn’t breathe. Something inside her told her that if she stopped walking she would stop breathing. So she kept walking.

Clarke walked down the hallway, down the staircase to the eighth floor and across the hall to Raven’s hotel room. She knocked quietly this time, the first pause since she started moving.

Raven opened the door after a moment, taking one look at Clarke before crossing her arms and snorting.

“What did Bellamy do now?” she asked. In response Clarke crashed into Raven and wrapped her arms around her.

“How did you know it was Bellamy?” Clarke murmured.

“Lucky guess. Come on in then,” Raven replied, ushering her into the room.

When Clarke was sufficiently swaddled in blankets and Raven was sitting next to her, she asked again, “What the hell happened?”

So Clarke told her about the interview and Bellamy’s running away. Despite his insistence, he did run. And it was completely moronic. When Clarke had finished that particular story, Raven was quick to respond.

“He knows you’re a national athlete, right? He knows you do interviews, and that some interviewers can be idiots, right?” Raven didn’t give her time to respond. “Clearly not or he wouldn’t have pouted.”

“He wasn’t pouting,” Clarke interjected. “He seemed, I don’t know, mad?”

“And why would he have any right to be mad? It’s not your fault the interviewers asked dumb questions.”

“Maybe because it insinuated that I’d go back to solo competitions?”

Raven pressed again. “And why would that bother him? He didn’t even want to do figure skating in the first place.”

“He does now, I guess?” she mumbled, curling deeper in to the blanket nest.

“Then I think you know what you need to do about that,” Raven advised, putting on that Big Sis’ voice Clarke hated.

“Yeah.”

It was quiet for a moment. Then Raven sighed louder.

“Okay, what _else_ did Bellamy do?”

Clarke didn’t say anything, but started crying instead. She couldn’t control it, like the little alien in her brain was throwing levers left and right to make tears come streaming down her cheeks. In between hiccups and sniffs, she told Raven about going to confront Bellamy and his tortoiseshell glasses and Gina and her towel and the running and everything.

When she was finished, Raven started cackling. Like the true friend she was.

“What?” Clarke sniffled, rubbing her nose on her sleeve.

“I’m sorry babe, I know this is rough and all, but I _so_ called this,” Raven told her, shoulders shaking with laughter.

“What are you talking about?”

“You have the hots for your skating partner. My god, it is so obvious! I called this.”

“I do not!” Clarke protested, not quite convincing herself. “I like Gina.”

“Gina has nothing to do with it, cupcake,” Raven said, wrapping her arms around Clarke and squeezing. “You want to jump your partner’s bones, is all. And may I say, what charming bones they are.”

“Raven—“

“No really. Those cheekbones? I never knew what the expression ‘cut yourself on his cheekbones’ meant until I saw him yesterday.”

“You didn’t know what that saying meant?” Clarke asked skeptically.

“Shut up,” Rave responded. “I would gladly shred myself on those cheekbones anytime.”

“Raven!”

“Just like you, of couse. Though I don’t have _feelings_.” She said it like it was a venereal disease. Raven was what Grandma Susie would call a “loose girl”. Raven preferred “woman who knows how to have fun”.

“Raven, I don’t,” she insisted.

“Are you sure? Why else would you be crying about seeing a naked woman in his hotel room?”

Clarke didn’t have any answer to that. She didn’t have any answer to anything really. She just leaned into Raven’s hug and hoped the alien controlling her body would return to its mothership.

* * *

She avoided Bellamy after that. It was challenging, living in the same house, but like all things in her life, Clarke aspired for perfection. He had seen nothing but the back of her head for a week. It was precisely how she wanted it. They had taken the week off before starting to train for nationals, so Clarke had nothing to do but binge Netflix and chat with Raven. The former helped, the later, less so.

“So how’s the homestead?” Raven asked on one of their chats.

“Perfect, obviously,” Clarke monotoned.

“Oh please, drama queen. Have you even talked to Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Nice-Ass?”

“Raven—“

“Have you?” Raven insisted.

Clarke had nothing to say in response. She turned and flopped face-first onto her bed, letting out an enormous exhale as she did so. Sure, things weren’t fabulous here in the Griffin complex, but it wasn’t a complete train wreck. She just needed to avoid Bellamy until… the end of time.

“No.”

“Well there’s your problem. You can’t get over your thing for Bellamy if you avoid him. You have to talk to him.”

“And say what, Raven?” Clarke rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry I acted like a clinically insane person at Regionals. I was just processing the fact that you have a girlfriend and no interest in me whatsoever.”

“What did I say about the drama?”

“I’m serious, Raven. I don’t think I can face him.”

“You can and you will. You are a goddamn warrior, Clarke,” Raven insisted, “and it is your right to slay the world and break as many hearts as you desire. The more you talk to him, the more your crush will fade, and you can go back to being the hot Ice Princess we all know and love.”

“Thanks,” Clarke laughed. “”I can’t possibly see a way that plan goes wrong.”

“I just come up with them. The execution is all on you, cupcake.”

“Bye, Raven,” Clarke intoned.

“Bye lady!” Raven responded cheerily. She had been surprisingly upbeat lately. Perhaps it was the mere idea of Clarke’s nonexistent romantic life going up in smoke. Raven did thrive on those sorts of things.

As soon as Clarke hung up, there was a knock on her door. Praying to every deity she could think of that it was neither her mother nor her skating partner, she hollered, “come in!” and prepared for the worst.

“What have you done to my brother?”

Clarke sat up on her bed. It was Octavia, with Madi to her right, storming her room like a battalion of fighters. She expected them to produce longswords and challenge her to a duel.

“I have done nothing to him.”

“Really?” Octavia asked, resting her arms on her hips. “Then why has he been so, so…”

“Mopey,” Madi supplied, and Octavia nodded.

“Yeah, mopey. He’s been moping. It’s the worst.”

Clarke shifted. “Well, there is a possibility that I said something stupid to a journalist at regionals that he overheard.”

“Aha!” Madi accused, pointing at Clarke and launching herself onto Clarke’s bed. “I knew it.”

“You knew nothing,” Clarke retorted, picking Madi up by the waist and throwing her toward the pile of pillows at one end of her bed. “When I went to apologize, rather than work it out he started a fight with me.”

“Isn’t that how most of your interactions go?” Octavia responded, raising an eyebrow. With her arms folded, leaning against the wall with one eyebrow up, she looked like a mini-Bellamy. Apparently being incredibly shady came with the Blake genetics.

“Well, sometimes,” Clarke admitted. “But I was trying to apologize, and he was being a dick about it.”

“Congratulations, my brother is a dick. I thought you knew that.”

Clarke snorted. “Well, yeah.”

“Hey!”

All three of them turned to the doorway. Bellamy leaned there, glasses on and hair mussed, looking only slightly indignant. Clarke flushed.

“O, what the hell?” he asked.

“Just telling the truth, Bell. You can be a dick sometimes,” Octavia replied, not even breaking a sweat.

“Don’t you have college applications to be doing?”

Octavia scoffed. “See?”

“O…”

“I’m going, I’m going,” she sighed, sauntering out of Clarke’s room.

“I just remembered, I have to help mom with something,” Madi said quickly, scampering out of the room and leaving Clarke alone with Bellamy.

_Those little monsters._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting there! I'm thinking probably 2 more chapters.  
> Thanks to all for sticking with it.
> 
> Kudos and Review, friends: they're not just discontinued granola bars and variety shows.


	12. Strong like a Diamond, Fragile like a Leaf

“What were you three talking about?” Bellamy asked once Madi left.

Instead of answering him, Clarke became fascinated with a loose thread in her carpet. Maybe she could pull it out with her toe if she concentrated hard enough. This was a far more useful endeavor than speaking to Bellamy.

“Clarke, seriously, look at me.” She stopped her carpet-related investigation and slowly raised her eyes to his.

“What?”

“Okay, I get why I’m pissed at you, but why are you pissed at me?”

“I’m not pissed,” Clarke answered.

“Then what?”

This made her think. Actually tell him what was bothering her, or invent something from thin air?

“You completely ran away from me. And when I tried to talk to you, you started fighting with me.”

Invent something from thin air it is, then.

“Clarke, are you kidding?” Bellamy asked her. “You gave an interview where you basically said I was a step-stool to getting back into solo skating, and you don’t get why I would be mad?”

“You never wanted to be a figure skater. You’re a hockey guy. You always said you’re a hockey guy.”

“I’m allowed to change my mind, princess,” he shot back.

She scoffed. “And what could possibly change your mind?”

“Do you even remember our conversation in your room at Regionals? Was that an embarrassment-induced fever dream? Who changed my mind? You did, you moron!”

“Way to be a cliché. Don’t got declaring your undying love for me now,” Clarke snapped, and immediately wanted to take back. If only there was a way to stuff words back into your mouth once they’d been said, like a fresh plate of gooey nachos. Clarke blushed, but her anger didn’t waver.

“Fat chance, princess,” Bellamy spat. “You proved you’re just selfish, thinking only about your own career.”

“Interviewers twist words, stick boy. Did I ever say I was going to drop you like a hot potato?” She paused, but Bellamy said nothing. “Didn’t think so. Did I ever say I didn’t like skating with you? Sure, I’m not going to deny I’ll ever go back to solo skating. It’s what I would be training for right now if it wasn’t for our chance in Nationals.”

“See?” Bellamy pointed indignantly.

“ _If it wasn’t for us_ ,” Clarke repeated. “But we’re good. And I’m invested in this. So stop treating me like a damn prima donna and just be my partner.”

“I don’t treat you like—“

“Yeah, you do. You call me ‘princess’ all the time and think I’m some self-absorbed bitch.”

“I don’t think you’re a bitch.”

“Then stop acting like it.”

“For someone who’s not pissed at me, you sure yell a lot,” he mumbled, sitting down next to her at the foot of her bed.

“I do not yell. I am _emphatic_.” Even as she said it she felt stupid.

“I’m sorry,” Bellamy said, and they sat in silence for a bit. “I thought this would be a chance for me. And for Octavia. I didn’t think it at first, but now it’s what I’m here for. I mean, I’m not going to be able to pay for her college on a zamboni salary. And it would kill me if O couldn’t go to whatever school she wanted.”

“She deserves it,” Clarke agreed, thinking fondly of the pure sunshine Octavia emits. If anyone should get everything they wanted, it was Octavia.

“Did you ever think about going to college?”

His question took her aback. She hadn’t thought about it in so long. In a long, _long_ time.

Once, she was an eighteen-year-old with an acceptance letter to attend Boston University. It was far enough that she would get to live in a dorm, with a _roommate_ , and be a normal college student. It was close enough that she would still be able to train with her parents on weekends, and her dad had found an intermediary coach in Boston who could fill in her schedule during the week. The day she got that letter, she jumped all over the Griffin house, twirling and screaming at the top of her lungs.

She was going to major in something wonderful, like English Literature. She was going to meet new people and have new experiences—go to college parties, have all-nighters, fall asleep in lecture, and everything else that college stood for. She planned what her dorm would look like, who her friends would be. When she visited the school she found the perfect coffee shop to write papers, and the perfect falafel shop to grab lunch on her way to class when she slept through her alarm. She was ecstatic, unable to be reasoned with.

And then her dad died. It was just the start of summer, and with everything that happened, she just couldn’t handle it. She couldn’t imagine going to BU if her dad wouldn’t be waiting for her at the commuter station every weekend. If she couldn’t tell him about the beautiful trees changing or her fabulous new friends. It felt hollow without him.

And then she broke her leg and was put up in bed for weeks on end. With no semblance of normalcy to speak of, she called Boston University and deferred to next year’s class, though at the time she had no intention of going. The deferment was more to silence Abby than anything. Her dreams of being normal at college and extraordinary on the ice left her with her dad.

“I got accepted to BU this year,” Clarke told him. “But with my dad, and my injury, I couldn’t—“

“Sure,” Bellamy agreed.

“I just deferred to next fall.”

“Do you ever think about actually going, though?”

For a moment her heart broke, just a little. He saw through her—all of the bullshit and the walls and the smokescreens of misdirections were useless with him. He knew exactly what she was thinking. And she yearned for it.

“Not right now,” she mumbled. “But maybe. It just seems hard, without my dad.”

“If I had the chance, nothing would stop me from going to college.” It hit her like an enormous gut punch: guilt and sadness and anger at circumstances.

“Did you ever think about going to college?” she asked, and this time it was Bellamy’s turn to clam up.

“In the abstract, I guess. I was O’s age when we lost our mom, so it wasn’t ever a real possibility…”

There was something about the way he said it, that Clarke instantly understood.

“What were you going to major in?”

He looked at her, surprised, before his face softened into a smile. “Classical Studies.”

Clarke laughed. “Oh, so you’re a big nerd, are you?”

“Don’t let anyone hear you say that. Yeah, I was going to when I was a punk kid, but it’s a completely useless degree. I know that now.”

“No it’s not,” she insisted. “You could be an archaeologist. Or a professor! You would rock that tweed vibe.”

“Maybe.”

At that moment, something occurred to her. “Bellamy, you know that there are monetary prizes for Nationals, right? Like, first prize for Nationals is twenty thousand dollars? Each?”

She had hit him with a brick building. It was the only thing she could surmise, as the dumbfounded expression and slack jaw didn’t seem to be changing. “Bellamy? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just, I didn’t know. That changes a lot.”

“Well, I was thinking. Since I don’t need the money—I mean, I live with my mother for Christ’s sake—I was thinking you could give my share to Octavia, to help her go to school. That way you could use your share to go to school yourself. I mean you’re completely wasted being a zamboni driver. You should be boring students with your love of the _Iliad_ or something—“ Clarke rambled, stopping suddenly.

He was just staring at her. She didn’t realize how close they were sitting on her bed until she stared back at him. His eyes were enormous. Not unbalanced, like a frog, but big and deep. She just wanted to curl up inside his irises, full of wonder and hope, and live there forever.

“Bellamy?” she asked.

His hand came up to her cheek. “You’re just so—“

Clarke had stopped breathing. She was getting her oxygen through the osmosis of his hand on her face. There was an actual cellular transfer of lifeforce happening from his freckled palm to her pale cheek.

He had done this hundreds of times. The start of their _Atonement_ skate included both of his hands on her face. But there was a world of difference between his “performance” hands on her face and his _real_ hands on her face.

She didn’t even know the end of that sentence. “You’re just so…” could end a multitude of ways. _Annoying, clever, unrealistic,_ and _ridiculous_ were all endings that could be put there, but she knew in her gut it wasn’t one of them.

“What?” Clarke exhaled, barely above a whisper.

“You…” he trailed off, leaning in this time. His forehead made contact with hers, fluffy and wavy hair between them. They both breathed together for one inhalation. Clarke’s arms found their way around his neck and bicep.

“I’m what?”

“You are… _incredible_.” The way he said it was reverent. It gave her goose bumps. She had never experienced such a raw outpouring of affection.

They stayed that way for a while, wrapped around each other, forehead’s touching, breathing each other’s air.

For Clarke it was more than a kiss. It was more intimate. This was the person she loved more than anyone else in the world. The realization of that surprised, but didn’t shock her. She knew she was in deep, but she didn’t know truly how deep she was. Raven would have a field day. There was something about being wrapped in someone’s arms, strong and tight, that made Clarke’s heart feel full. She was completely content to sit there forever.

Until her mind drifted back to reality.

Suddenly it was like he shocked her. Clarke stood immediately, untangling herself and standing at what would be considered a respectable distance for two friends/colleagues.

“Clarke—“ He looked desolate and lost.

“Gina,” was all she said in response, and his features changed just as quickly. Suddenly shame clouded his mellowed face. In the past months Clarke had become an expert on the many moods of Bellamy Blake. His eyebrows knit together the way they did when he couldn’t master a certain element, or had been fighting with Octavia. It was sadness and worry, but anger directed inwards. It was volatile, but also still.

“Clarke, I—“

She didn’t let him finish that sentence. She knew, no matter what the end of it was, it would break one of their hearts. It sure as hell wasn’t going to be hers.

“I’m gonna go check on Madi,” she stuttered, and left her own room in search of her sister. Anything to escape that moment.

Because Clarke was a lot of things. She was rude, and snarky, and clever, and silly. She broke rules, and played games, and worked harder than she ever thought possible. She was a million facets of her very own diamond.

But she was not a mistress. She was not the other woman. She respected herself and the other women of the world too much to be a side piece. So even though she knew that Bellamy was a kind and wonderful man, and even though she had just realized she might actually be in love with her skating partner, she walked away.

They never discussed it. They pretended there was nothing to discuss. Technically, as Raven posited later that day via Skype, they didn’t do anything that the world would qualify as cheating. There was no making out, no groping, nothing sexual of any kind. And yet, Clarke was completely changed by that encounter. There was something about the way he held her face, like she was a precious gem.

They still practiced like normal, skated like normal, _held each other in a tight embrace during routines_ like normal, but something had fundamentally changed. Clarke was self-conscious around him. It was incredibly awkward; holding someone you couldn’t live without but couldn’t talk to about it. She wavered between feeling like a terrible feminist and a terrible skating partner, always a little slow on the uptake during practice and ghosting away to her room when she could. It was hard enough to prep for Nationals without this hanging over her head. They were getting good, but she could feel something holding them back. She just prayed it was their skillset rather than the way his hand lingered on her cheek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I lied, probably a couple more after this. Who knows?
> 
> Kudos & Review, friends: they're not just discontinued granola bars and variety shows.


	13. God Help the Girl

Clarke’s attempts to avoid Bellamy completely were moderately successful for a few weeks. They only started breaking down when Jasper started whining over text that he hadn’t seen her in a while, or when Gina sent that ridiculous Buzzfeed quiz about which brunch food she was. She was told that she was an egg-white omelet and honestly wasn’t surprised.

Soon the gang started dragging her to Dropkick and the Dropship diner again despite protests, and things fell back into a predictable pattern. She interacted with Bellamy the requisite amount at practice, allowed herself to exist in his presence when hanging with their delinquent crew, and avoided him anywhere else. She became practiced in the art of distinguishing his footsteps in the hallways so she could duck into the bathroom or wait him out.

It made sense to do this, because she didn’t trust herself around him. The anger and fear was entirely internalized, something Raven didn’t waste a minute to call her out on. Clarke understood that she was being extremist in her avoidance of him, but she could feel his pull like a magnet. She didn’t trust herself to not do something stupid.

She still loved him. Raven had the predicted field day when she was told, adopting an uncharacteristic cheer and vibrancy during that Skype session. She had suggested to Clarke that avoiding him would help her, maybe lessen her affections, but after weeks and months it still wasn’t working. She still yearned for his breath—the way it had ghosted across her face when they had sat on her bed holding each other. She yearned for their electricity, something that had been lost from their skating ever since.

That was a conscious effort, though, like turning off a tap. Clarke used to pull from that wellspring of emotion whenever she skated with Bellamy to create the charged, creative storytelling, but she refused to go down there again. There was no telling what would surface.

They lasted weeks and months that way. Clarke felt a bit like she was in a dream, world swirling around her and out of her control. She kept her habit of avoidance pretty well, until the week before Nationals.

* * *

Gina arrived at the rink right before the end of practice, watching them spin through the end of their routine. It was nearly finished, only tweaks and adjustments to be made in the coming days. Clarke’s triple had gotten consistent, and she had expanded to different types of jumps. Two synchronized triple jumps now appeared in their new long program. It was one of the few things that brought her pure joy lately.

“You guys look amazing!” she gushed, as both Bellamy and Clarke reached the edge of the ice and put their guards on.

“Thanks,” Clarke answered.

She supposed she had gone out of her way to interact with Gina the past couple months. It had started as guilt, but truly, they were good friends now. She probably texted Gina more than Bellamy did, considering his geriatric phone habits. She wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt her. In avoiding that, it just meant Clarke hurt herself instead, as pseudo-therapist Raven would remind her.

“Come on. The guys are already at Dropkicks. We’re going to go celebrate,” Gina instructed them, steering both toward their bags and gear.

“Why?” Bellamy asked. “We haven’t won anything yet.”

“Stop. You’re coming. Both of you,” Gina insisted, with a glint and a smile. “You made it to Nationals. You haven’t killed each other. That’s something to smile about. And I guarantee you there are a couple more things to celebrate too.”

“Oh really? Do tell,” Bellamy said, arching an eyebrow.

“No-no, at Dropkicks. The guys are waiting.”

They had no choice but to follow her. Gina hustled them to Bellamy’s truck, and through the door of Dropkicks. Monty, Miller, and Jasper were already seated at a big booth in the back, but they had company.

“Harper! Bryan!” Clarke exclaimed, recognizing the pair as everyone stood for hugs and greetings. “What are you doing here?”

“We’re going to Nationals this weekend,” Harper explained. “And since you’re pretty close to the host city, we figured we should stop by.”

“We’re nowhere near Philadelphia,” Bellamy asserted.

“We’re from Wyoming. You’re basically on top of it,” Bryan replied.

“Besides,” Harper continued, “it was a good reason to see Monty.”

At that reasoning, Monty’s hand slid into hers. They looked at each other, smiling, while Miller and Bryan did a less gooey version of their own.

“That’s amazing!” Clarke congratulated, just a little too loudly, trying to be enthused. She and Jasper had just become the third wheels to a couple’s night, only exacerbating her desolate loneliness and cracked heart. Now all she wanted to do was go home.

“This sucks,” Jasper muttered from behind her. She couldn’t agree more.

* * *

Two hours later, Jasper and Bryan had taken over the dance floor, much to Harper and Monty’s bewilderment. Bellamy and Miller were in a blood feud over a game of darts on the other side of the room, and Gina and Clarke were chatting at the booth.

“Are you ready for Nationals?” Gina asked, and Clarke dropped her forehead to the table.

“Can we talk about anything but skating? I beg of you. I have other interests.”

Gina laughed. “Tell me about one of them, then.”

She thought for a moment, coming up dry. Clarke raised her head from the tabletop. “You’re the worst.”

That only made Gina laugh harder.

“Seriously, tell me about your life,” Clarke prodded. “What do you want to do? It can’t just be bumming around western Massachusetts going to dive bars.”

“I’m going to be a book editor,” Gina said after a moment. “I’m going to help publish books. My degree is in publishing and contemporary literature.”

“Wait, you went to college?” Clarke felt bad about the surprise in her voice. Of the delinquent crew, only Monty and Miller had degrees, though Jasper had attended two years of university before dropping out to pursue a startup for edible cartography puzzles. Obviously, that didn’t work out.

It was terrible of her, but she just assumed Gina hadn’t gone.

“Yeah, C, I went,” Gina rolled her eyes, “You know there are like fifteen colleges within a thirty-mile radius, right? I graduated from UMass in May. I got the fancy diploma and everything.”

“I didn’t mean—“

“Yeah, yeah, I’m just being shady. When are you going to BU? This fall?”

“Um—“ Clarke stalled.

“Clarke. You have to go. Do something new. Try something new. Give yourself some skills. You can do some jumps and tricks on the ice, but you should learn some things unrelated to skating.”

“I know things,” Clarke muttered petulantly. Gina was right, of course. “I’ll think about it.”

“You’re going,” Gina repeated, “if only so you can keep up with Captain Nerd over there.”

She pointed to the corner where Bellamy was enacting some sort of ritualistic mockery of Miller’s dart-throwing abilities. Miller leaned against the bar, arms crossed and trying desperately not to laugh.

“He is a massive nerd,” Clarke conceded, face getting warm at the turn of subject.

“At least you get him out of his head. It takes actual work for me to make him stop deconstructing Greek symbology in his mind while I’m talking to him.”

Clarke needed to get out of this conversation.

“I’ve got to go to the bathroom,” she tried, as she got up from the booth. Gina’s hand on her shoulder stopped her.

“Clarke,” Gina started. “I’m glad he has you, you know? When his mom got sick, he was pretty young. In middle school. He hadn’t met the guys yet. I was really his only friend.”

She had no idea where this was going. If this was some way for Gina to stake her turf or something, it was pretty morbid.

“The guys get him, but not like that, you know? He’s been through a lot. I saw all of it. We’ve known each other for a decade. There’s something about knowing someone for that long—you get really good at reading them. And knowing what they’re thinking—”

 _Shit_. Did she somehow, inexplicably, _know_ about the moment on Clarke’s bed? That was ridiculous. They never, ever discussed it after that day.

“—so believe me when I say that you have got to be the best thing that happened to him this year. You got him out of his rut and he’s alive again. Thanks for that.”

She had no way to respond to that. It was a lot to put on a single person, and primarily, Clarke just didn’t really believe it. There was no way that Human Disaster Clarke Marjorie Griffin (don’t ask), who had done nothing but fight and aggravate him since they met, was the best thing to happen to Bellamy. It was just unrealistic.

Clarke settled for something innocuous, shrugging her off. “I’m glad, Gina. Be right back?”

“Sure,” she answered, and Clarke hustled in the direction of the bathroom.

The women’s bathroom at Dropkicks was exactly what you would picture for a pub-adjacent-dive-bar bathroom, but also not. Graffiti scrawled over the walls, tales of old flames and girl gangs of yore. But the sink situation was also immaculate. They were beautiful porcelain structures with Hollywood vanity lights framing the mirrors. It was inexplicable, but felt right.

Clarke didn’t bother going into a stall, bee-lining for the sink at the end and splashing water on her face.

What the hell was she supposed to say to that? _Thank you, I get my skills from my overwhelming love for your boyfriend? The only reason I deal with his completely nerdy personality is because I’m totally hot for him?_ None of these seemed like good ideas.

She had to go back out sometime, but looking at herself in the mirror, she gave it another minute. There was something about the way her eyeliner was smeared that she needed to fix. Or maybe her mascara. Or that zit on her chin could use a little more concealer.

She was stalling. She knew this, but she couldn’t help herself. It was compulsive avoidance.

When she finally gave up and left the bathroom, the first thing she saw was Bellamy and Gina standing at the booth. He was holding her by her shoulders, speaking intently. Gina took his face in her hands and responded just as insistently. While Clarke wished she could hear what they were saying, she also wanted to scrub the memory from her mind as it was happening and flee the state.

She couldn’t stop watching. Gina made to leave, but he stopped her, grabbing hold of her hand. Maybe he had told her about the night on the bed. Why else would she leave?

Just as that became Clarke’s leading theory, Gina said something to Bellamy that brightened his face. Clarke could finally make out a single word from their conversation, Bellamy’s “really?” filled with anticipation. Gina nodded, and his face lit up. He wrapped his arms around her waist and spun her around in a circle. The joy was apparent, and it just made her want to hurl.

As she was turning to return to the bathroom, Miller appeared at her shoulder.

“Here,” he said, handing her a glass of beer.

“You know I’m not legal, right? You’re giving alcohol to a minor.”

“Eh, the Irish have a strong tradition of feeding their children whiskey to numb their pain,” Miller answered, taking a sip of his own glass.

“And I’m in pain?” Clarke asked, eyebrow arching.

“About as much as I can bear watching sober.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Blake. He’s an idiot.”

Clarke snorted. “Yeah. So?”

“Just because I don’t talk a lot doesn’t mean I’m not paying attention, short stack.”

“Who you calling short stack?” Clarke retorted, grin on her face.

“Drink up. This is the one and only time.”

“You got it.” They clinked glasses and Miller sauntered off in search of another darts game. Clarke went to the closest thing Dropkicks had to a dance floor, joining Jasper and Bryan in their synchronized sway. She spent the rest of the night in Jasper’s silly embrace, jiving to Fleetwood Mac and Lady Gaga and everything in between.

The beer gave her warmth in her stomach, clouding over the disasters and the anguish of the evening. She spun in circles with Harper, and even waltzed with Bryan once. Late in the night, as the beer was wearing off and the bar was wearing down, someone had put on a slow song. Jasper had bowed exaggeratedly for her hand, and when she curtseyed and took it, he whirled her into a tight embrace to sway. With the beer haze fading away, the sadness started creeping back in again.

“JJ?” she asked, mumbling with her temple on his shoulder.

“Yeah?” She could feel his voice ruffling through her hair.

“Don’t let me make a fool of myself, pining after someone, okay?”

“You could never be a fool, Clarkey,” Jasper responded after a moment. “I pity the fool that thinks you’re foolish.”

Clarke smiled, a smile measured in millimeters instead of inches.

“Besides,” he continued, “it’s only pining if it’s unreturned. My girl Jane Austen taught me that.”

That made her grin outright, but she pushed again. “Trust me, I’m pining. Promise you won’t let me anymore?”

“I promise, Clarke Griffin.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to you all for sticking with it! One chapter to go.
> 
> Kudos & Review, friends: they're more than discontinued granola bars and variety shows.


	14. Morons and Carbs

The next day Clarke was descending the stairs when she ran into Bellamy. Literally.

She must have been staring at the “Cascading Shrine to the Griffin Children”, as her dad would often call it. The whole wall of the staircase was covered in photos of Clarke and Madi, from skating recitals to hockey team photos and action shots. A few were hilarious staged photos they had been dragged to take in a photography studio at the mall, matching outfits and trellises of fake flowers abounding.

She had been looking at the shot of her Junior Nationals debut. Some photojournalist had caught the moment that she finished the routine that won her first place. Her dad called and bought a print of it from the guy, and surprised her when they got home. Her arms were raised above her head, and her over-the-top, late-aughts costume was ruffling around her legs. It was the smile on her face that made it mesmerizing. Just like the ones that she recognized on Madi and Octavia’s faces, her smile was glowing. She didn’t have a single care in the world at that very moment.

Clarke looked down at Bellamy, standing a few steps past her on the stairs.

“Clarke, sorry! I’ve been looking for you,” Bellamy said. Clarke just shrugged in response. “I was at Walgreens and got something for you.”

He held out a jumbo bag of gummy worms. Clarke took it.

“Thanks.” He was acting very odd.

“I hadn’t seen you refill your junk food stash lately. I knew you had to be running low.”

If she was running low, it’s because she had been eating her weight in gummy worms to drown her sorrows and forget him. Now he was just enabling her sugar addiction.

When Clarke didn’t answer, he spoke up again.

“What are you doing tonight? I was thinking we could try out that new Italian place around the corner. The one with the wine-bottle candles and the enormous meatballs?”

“Sure,” Clarke replied. “I’ll send out a message in the group text—”

“No!” Bellamy answered quickly. “I was thinking we could just go together. Carbo-load before Nationals, and all.”

Had he just…?

“We’re not competing for like, three days. That’s not how carbo-loading works,” Clarke pointed out, choosing to engage with the easiest part of his sentence.

Bellamy rubbed a hand over his face under his glasses, shaking his head. “Right. Right. That’s dumb. Of course.”

“If you’re craving Italian, I’m sure Marcus could make Chicken Parm tonight. He’s always excited when people engage with the meal-planning experience. God knows I never do.”

“No. Nah, I’m good. Thanks though,” Bellamy said, with all the intonation of someone about to leave a conversation, but without going anywhere. He just stood there, looking at her. It was weird.

“Okay. I’ve got to go talk to Raven. I’ll see you later,” Clarke added, and went back up the staircase in the direction she came.

Now carrying a four-pound bag of gummy worms and a lot of questions.

As soon as she got into her room and safely stored the gummy worms in her junk tub, she called Raven. Her fingers couldn’t press the buttons fast enough.

“What’s up, cupcake?” Raven greeted, huffing a bit. She was clearly working out from the way her head kept swaying in and out of frame.

“Rae, we have a problem.”

Raven rolled her eyes. “What happened?”

“I think Bellamy just asked me out?”

“What?” her screech blasting through Clarke’s phone as she jerked out of frame. After a second, the phone jerked again, and landed facing the ceiling. She could hear Raven swearing on the other end of the call.

“I’m fine, Valerie, go back to your tire flipping, you basic biddie,” Raven snarked at an unseen person in the gym. She came back into frame as she picked up her phone, directing herself back to Clarke. “I just fell off a treadmill for you, donut. What are you talking about?”

“He gave me a big-ass bag of gummy worms and asked if I wanted to go to an Italian restaurant tonight, and when I suggested texting everyone about it he said he wanted to go just the two of us.”

“Wasn’t he spinning Gina around last night?” Clarke had recapped the evening to her when she got home.

“Yeah, but maybe he just meant as partners. He was talking about carbo-loading. Not exactly date material.”

“Who the hell knows what turns the two of you weirdos on?”

“Raven! I’m serious.”

“Me too, my little kruller. I wasn’t there. Think about it. Did it seem like he was asking you out?”

Clarke tried to think. She had been so blindsided to it she didn’t think much about it. “ I guess? He was shifting his weight and mumbling, so maybe?”

“It doesn’t really matter,” Raven told her. “You said last night that you’re done with him.”

“Well…”

“Clarke!”

“It’s not like a faucet, Raven! I’m starting to get over him, but it’s not going to be immediate.”

“Then you shouldn’t go. You absolutely should not go. Nothing good will come of it.”

She was right. Clarke knew that. It was good to hear it from someone else though.

“Yeah, okay.”

“You still love him, you moron. It’s your flaw—you don’t give up on people.”

“No kidding. I never gave up on you,” Clarke teased.

“I’d never allow it, croissant,” Raven replied.

“No kidding, Raven, you need to give up this low-carb diet. Get yourself a muffin or something. It’s making you crazy.”

“It’s only one more day! I can make it,” she retorted.

“Bye, Rae,” Clarke grinned, hanging up the call.

She sat back on her bed for a moment, ruminating. Raven was one-hundred-percent right. She needed to be open to new things, not dwelling on the past. She went over to her closet and found her slinkiest dress, something Raven had helped her pick out last time she visited, tossing it into her suitcase for Nationals. There was bound to be someone she could impress with her skating skills and swinging hips.

“Clarke?”

She spun around to see Bellamy standing in her doorway. He had crept up on her, an expression of moderate panic on his face.

“What?” Clarke asked, hands on her hips.

“I wanted to clarify—I mean, I don’t know if you realized it, but I—I was asking you to dinner—“

“I realized,” Clarke interrupted, feeling rising inside her. It wasn’t exactly anger, not exactly sadness or fear. It was like the broken shards of her heart were vibrating within her chest, and suddenly she was ready. Ready for the fight she had been waiting to have for months. “I just didn’t want to go.”

“Oh. I get—I get it. I didn’t mean to—to assume, but I—because of that day when we were talking about—and it felt like you—“ Bellamy stuttered, but Clarke stopped him.

“You mean that time we never spoke about again? That I’m ashamed of, for doing anything that would hurt Gina? I know I’m better than that. I thought you were too.”

“I was! I am. It’s why I’m saying I’m not—“

Now she felt the anger, igniting under her skin. “I’m not about to be your girl on the side, Bellamy. Gina deserves better, and I deserve better—“

“Of course you do. I’ve been a mess, and Gina keeps telling me—“

“I saw you, talking at the booth,” Clarke cut him off, and he finally stopped talking for a moment.

“You saw that?”

“Yeah. I have no interest in being some distraction—“

“But you’re not, Clarke. Gina’s not—“ Bellamy sputtered.

“No. You don’t get to have an argument in this. This isn’t an argument. It’s a declaration. All these months, I’ve been so in love with you, head over heels for your big heart and charming wit. But I’m done with it. You’re with Gina, so I’m getting over it. We’re going to compete at Nationals because we have to, and then we’re done. We’ll win and you’ll get your prize money to go to college and I’ll go back to my solo skates. I can’t anymore.”

She didn’t even feel awkward about declaring her love or whatever, since she shut it down just as quickly. She _loved_ , past tense.

It was wild to watch Bellamy’s features fluctuate through different expressions of confusion and happiness and guilt and sadness.

“Excuse me,” she told him, pushing past him out of her room and down the hall. She ached to sit in her dad’s library and brush her fingers over the spines of the novels packed on the shelves. She couldn’t, though. Bellamy had even eclipsed her memories of her dad with memories of sitting next to him, side by side, on the floor reading books.

She settled for going to the kitchen, hoping her mother and Marcus weren’t around. When she turned the corner, she found Octavia perched on the counter, eating potato chips. She started when she saw Clarke.

“Oh my god you cannot tell Abby I was eating junk food in her kitchen,” Octavia told her.

“I promise,” Clarke assured her, and Octavia relaxed, resuming her characteristic smile.

“What did you do to Bellamy?” she asked. “I saw him banging his head into a wall repeatedly, telling himself he’s an idiot. I can only assume that’s because of you.”

Clarke flushed. “I mean, I guess?”

Octavia’s eyes grew. “Oh my god. It was! Did he finally ask you out?”

Instead of waiting for an answer, Octavia turned over her shoulder and hollered down the hall, “Madi!! Get in here! It’s happening!”

Madi came careening down the hall, slip-sliding in her socked feet and landing on the kitchen island. “Really?”

“I know,” Octavia answered.

“What did she say?”

“I don’t know!”

It was like they were speaking in code.

“What did you say?” Madi asked.

“I said no,” Clarke answered, confused by this entire conversation.

“What? Why?” the two girls wailed.

“He’s dating Gina,” Clarke said matter-of-factly. This really shouldn’t be so confusing.

“No, he’s not,” Octavia told her.

“What are you talking about?”

“They broke up like, two months ago,” Octavia spoke slowly, like talking to an idiot.

“No,” Clarke argued, “I was with them last night. He was spinning her around and—“

“They’re still friends. Gina’s been like family forever. Just because they’re not dating doesn’t mean they’re not friends. He once carried Jasper bridal-style through the streets of Boston.”

Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen aggressive PDA from them in a while, but she also was avoiding Bellamy like the plague. How had she not seen it? Where was her brain?

“He never said anything,” Clarke muttered.

“I hate to break it to you, but my brother’s a moron,” Octavia nodded sagely.

“You’re sure?”

“Sure that my brother’s a moron? Yeah, pretty sure,” she laughed.

“No. You’re sure they’re not together?”

“Sure as shit,” Madi confirmed.

“Madeline!” Abby scolded, appearing around the corner and catching her younger daughter’s foul mouth.

“Sorry, Mom,” Madi intoned, and she and Octavia scampered up the staircase, Octavia hiding the chip bag to the best of her ability and muttering something about killing Bellamy.

“They’re going to spoil their dinner with all that junk food you keep in your rooms,” Abby sighed, pouring herself a glass of wine and taking up her perch at the end of the counter.

“You know about that?” Clarke always assumed they were better at hiding it.

“Of course. I’m not blind. You’ve always been terrible liars,” she laughed.

“You’re not mad?”

“You eat your vegetables and both of you exercise plenty. A handful of gummy worms won’t hurt you.”

“You never said anything.”

“Ever wonder how sometimes stuff would just appear in your junk tub under your bed?”

Clarke thought for a moment. There had been times when she thought for sure she had eaten the last of the worms or sour cherries and she would find a fresh bag waiting for her.

“I always thought that was Dad,” she admitted.

“Your father wasn’t the only one who knew how to have fun,” Abby answered, shooting her a wry grin.

She had seriously misjudged her mother. Maybe she wasn’t the robotic witch Clarke thought she was.

* * *

Clarke’s conversation with Octavia and Madi had completely thrown her for a loop. She didn’t know what to do but sort out the truth, and Raven must have caved and slipped into a carb-coma, because she wasn’t answering her phone.

There was no way in hell she was going to talk to Bellamy about it. Yes, she just argued with him about it, but if this was true, he’d been broken up with Gina for months and never mentioned it. She could feel her heart swelling at the possibilities, but was trying to keep it tamped down for fear of getting hurt again. She wasn’t going to dwell on her own feelings until she got the lay of the land under control again. It was like the whole world was spinning out with Clarke at the center.

One thing kept sticking with her. Why wouldn’t he just tell her? He obviously must have liked her a little, or he wouldn’t have asked her out. But he waited months to talk to her after their moment on the bed. Did he break up with Gina right afterward? Was she the reason they broke up? Clarke couldn’t take being the wedge between them. She needed to be sure that she wasn’t the cause of their fallout. She wouldn’t be able to forgive herself otherwise.

That left one person in the world she could ask. She grabbed her bag and left the house, typing in a phone number as she climbed into the car. They answered on the second ring, Clarke reversing out of the driveway.

“Gina? Can we get dinner tonight? I want to talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I'm sorry, I lied. There's too much to get through for just one chapter. Sorry!
> 
> Kudos & Review friends! They're not just discontinued granola bars and comedy showcases.


	15. He's Been A Fool, But So Have I

Gina met her at the pizzeria outside of town, Uncle Zio’s. Clarke used to love this place when she was younger. Her dad used to teach her Italian words and phrases while the owner, Nina Salvatore, would laugh at him from the kitchen. Nina’s father had named it after his Uncle Fabrizio from the Old World, and after Clarke’s dad taught her that “zio” meant “uncle” in Italian, nothing made Clarke laugh harder at six years old than the fact that the restaurant was basically called “Uncle Uncle”. It occupied her for days.

Uncle Zio’s was the stock photo of an Italian restaurant, big plastic booths and red-checkered tablecloths. One of Clarke’s fondest memories of the place was Nina blasting Verdi operas in the kitchen and singing along, dancing with the paddle she used to stir her vat of marinara sauce.

When she pulled up into the parking lot, Gina was already leaning against the windows outside, scrolling through her phone. Clarke clambered out of her car and up to the door, nervous. She shouldn’t have been, though, since Gina wrapped her in a big hug and they shuffled inside, escaping the biting wind.

Once seated and properly greeted by Nina herself, paddle in hand, they sat across from each other. Silently.

How did you broach the subject of a friend’s heretofore-unknown breakup?

If you’re Clarke, you do it bluntly. Like ripping off a band-aid.

“So, Gina,” Clarke started, tapering off as the girl across from her looked up.

“Yeah?”

Come on, Clarke, just do it.

“Did you and Bellamy break up?”

Gina looked at her, head cocked in confusion. “Like two months ago, C. Didn’t Bellamy tell you?”

“No.”

“Seriously?”

“No, he didn’t,” Clarke insisted.

At this Gina slapped the plasticized menu into her face.

“Jesus, Bell,” she muttered.

“When?”

“When did we break up? Like two months ago. He didn’t mention it?”

“Nope.” Finally something landed with Clarke. “Two months ago?”

“Yeah. It’s why I can’t imagine that he didn’t tell you.”

Sitting on her bed was two months ago. Her almost kissing Bellamy was two months ago. Their moment of cosmic forehead-touching was two months ago. That couldn’t be coincidence.

“What happened?”

“What do you think happened? We stopped dating,” Gina smirked, taking a bite of a breadstick.

“Gina,” Clarke sighed.

“Clarke,” Gina mimicked, making Clarke crack a smile.

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

Clarke huffed. “So what? You both walked into a room one day and said, ‘we need to break up’? That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s not completely ridiculous, C,” Gina returned, mouth still full of breadstick. “We mutually realized that our relationship had run its course.”

“That’s the blandest breakup statement I’ve ever heard. You sound like you just cancelled your Hulu free trial,” Clarke returned.

“What do you want me to say? I’m not going to break down sobbing, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

“Gina, I don’t want you to cry, Jesus. Who says I want that? Honestly, Gina, from where in this conversation did you get that I wanted to make you feel bad about this? I don’t,” Clarke repeated, intent on making her understand. “I didn’t even know you broke up, and I’m trying to catch up on the required supportive girl-talk about this. If anything, this conversation is making _me_ feel like shit.”

Gina smirked. “And why would you be feeling like shit?”

Clarke was not about to answer that question. Not yet, anyway. “Why are you so light-hearted about this?”

“It was two months ago? It was amicable?” Gina offered. “I still love Bellamy to death, don’t get me wrong. But it was two months ago. I’ve mourned. I’ve moved on. What do you want to get for dinner?”

And with that, they moved on to other conversations, debating the pros and cons of lasagna and origins of pepperoncini peppers in Italian salads. They chatted randomly, meandering through topics as they ordered and got their food. Nina presented their platters full of pasta with a flourish—ravioli for Gina, Clarke caved to the lasagna—while singing along to a Puccini aria. Clarke would guess that the song was about everlasting love, but pretty much every aria was, if it wasn’t about dying of tuberculosis or being slut-shamed.

“So if Bellamy didn’t tell you we broke up, I’m guessing that he hasn’t asked you out yet,” Gina said.

In true karmic fashion, Clarke had just eaten a huge bite of her lasagna, so she was incapable of answering. She did choke quite spectacularly, coughing for an extended period of time before she could speak.

“What?” she attempted.

“Ugh. That coward. I’ve been telling him to for weeks, but does he listen to me?” Gina snorted, punctuated by stuffing a giant ravioli in her mouth. “We stop dating and he stops listening to me about romance.”

“Wait,” Clarke said, processing. “Did you break up because of the thing?”

Gina raised her eyebrows. “The thing?”

“The, uh, you know, the thing. Two months ago,” Clarke stumbled, “with Bellamy?”

“I’m really not sure what you’re talking about,” Gina said, even though it sounded like she knew exactly what Clarke was talking about. “Two months ago he walked into my apartment with the biggest pair of shamed-puppy-eyes I have ever experienced and tried to start to explain something that happened.”

“He told you?” Clarke couldn’t imagine how Gina had been her friend after that. The whole point of stopping and not mentioning it ever, ever again was to spare Gina.

“He started to, but I didn’t let him get too far,” Gina explained. “I know I should have been pissed, him telling me how he felt about another person, but I wasn’t. I realized I wasn’t in love with him. And I knew there was no way he was ever going to break up with me after that. He had done something he viewed as reprehensible, and he’s such a good guy, there was no way he was ever going to do anything that could possibly hurt me, even if it hurt him in the long run. We would have been picking out wedding venues before he realized he was just trying to atone.”

“But you’ve dated since you were in high school. Are you saying you were never in love with him?”

“It’s not the same,” Gina laughed dryly. “We started dating because when you’re sixteen and someone’s mom dies, and that person cries in your arms a lot, after a while you start to make out instead. It’s a hormonal certainty. It made us both feel better about our shitty lives. We just confused it with romantic love.”

She paused, putting down her fork and adjusting her posture, like she was mentally preparing for something.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love Bellamy. I will always love him. But two months ago I realized that you don’t have to date someone to love them. We’ve been through shit together. He’s family. He and Octavia. But I’m never going to be the love of his life.”

“What about last night?”

“What about it?”

“I went to the bathroom, and when I came back he was spinning you around or something.”

“Do I sense some _jealousy_?” Gina asked, shimmying her shoulders.

Clarke didn’t have the ability to respond. She just stuttered a bit, making collections of noises vaguely resembling words.

Gina saved her from answering. “Remember me telling you about working in publishing? I got into the masters program at Northwestern. In Chicago. I start in a couple weeks.”

“That’s amazing!”

“That’s what I was telling Bellamy. He really pushed me to apply, so I wanted him to be the first to know,” Gina added. “So it really is fine.”

“Oh. Okay,” Clarke mumbled, chastened back to staring at her lasagna.

“Clarke, look at me.”

She slowly raised her eyeline. “Yeah?”

“I meant what I said last night. You make him better. I have never seen him light up in someone’s presence like he does with you. You are the best thing that’s happened to him.”

“Then why doesn’t he tell me anything?” Clarke asked petulantly. “I’m not asking for some grand declaration of love, but he didn’t even tell me you two broke up! I’ve seen him every day since then.”

“I don’t know why he’s being such a dumbass about it. You’ll have to ask him. But don’t let his dumbassery keep you two from each other. You like him, right?”

For some reason, of all the things Gina had said tonight, that was the thing that stalled her. Not out of indecision, but out of certainty. Her immediate response was “I love him”, which shocked her. Bellamy had been the source of a lot of joy and pain over the last six months, but without hesitation she knew it. Raven Reyes might be her best friend in this world, but Bellamy was certainly her best love.

“Yeah, I do,” Clarke confirmed.

“Good. Because you’re both idiots. For Christ’s sake, just make out already. It’s exhausting.”

“Have I told you you’re being incredibly chill about this?”

“Have to,” Gina laughed—a full-throated laugh with her head thrown back. “Between Bellamy’s brooding, Octavia and Jasper’s manic states, Monty’s paranoia, and Nate’s grumpiness, I have a lifetime of experience being the even keel.”

“That’s true.”

“Seriously,” Gina said, grabbing Clarke’s hand, “don’t let me keep you two from getting your shit together. Just go for it.”

“I don’t know about that. If Bellamy wanted to date me, he would have told me that he was single. And do more than ask me to a carbo-load.”

“He did that? When?”

“His version of asking me out was asking to carb-prep for Nationals three days early.”

Gina clanged her silverware for effect. “Clarke! This man is the most emotionally inarticulate person on the planet. Take the damn offer!”

“As I explained to Raven, and Octavia, and Madi, a carbo-load session is not a date. He’s going to have to do better than gummy worms and a utilitarian meal.”

“Oh my god, Bell,” Gina sighed, exasperated. “That man is an idiot.”

“Yup.”

“You like it, though.”

“Yeah,” Clarke laughed. “Isn’t that the worst?”

* * *

After having dinner with Gina, Clarke felt like a weight had been taken off her shoulders. Was it weird to need his ex-girlfriend’s blessing before pursuing a man? Maybe. It still helped.

When she arrived home, Bellamy was nowhere to be found. Which was odd. It’s not like she was expecting him to be waiting in the doorway with a bouquet of roses, but gone without a trace? Clarke settled in for a movie night with Madi instead of worrying. She didn’t even squabble when Madi wanted to watch _27 Dresses_.

The next time she saw Bellamy was at their final practice at home before they left for Nationals. He skated onto the rink with a certain stiff-nonchalance, giving her a curt nod before gliding behind her to set for warm-ups. While not completely out of hand—Bellamy would sometimes be reserved before warm-ups, preferring not to actually converse until lunch—it was still jarring.

She had almost forgotten that she declared her love for him twenty-four hours earlier. That came to her mid-jump as she was flying through their long program later that morning. Her focus broken and immediately self-conscious with him, she missed the hand-grab after the landing and whizzed past him.

“Clarke!” Abby hollered from the other side of the rink, cutting out the music. “Where are you?”

“I’m right here, obviously,” Clarke sassed, and immediately regretted it. It wasn’t Abby’s fault that she was preoccupied with her own humiliation. “Sorry, I lost focus. Can we do it again?”

“Clarke, we leave for Nationals tomorrow. Now is not the time for breaking focus,” Abby lectured. It was impressive how she was able to keep up the kindergarten-teacher-tone at such high decibels. Most people would just be shouting that far away, but Abby Griffin managed complex inflection.

“Let’s go again,” Clarke repeated. “I’ll keep it together. I promise.”

“No, we’re due to take a break for lunch anyway,” Abby sighed. Again, impressive at this volume. “We’ll pick it up after lunch.”

And with that, she walked away. She didn’t even wait for Clarke or Bellamy to respond. She just walked away from the rink towards the owners’ office. Clarke and Bellamy skated to the edge of the rink, where their bags and jackets were stashed.

“Where’d you go the other night?” Clarke asked him. “We had to watch _27 Dresses_ without you.”

“I don’t know, around,” he answered, not looking at her.

 _Ask me where I went. Let me tell you I know you’re single_ , Clarke mentally screamed at him. She was bursting for him to ask. She was too chicken to start the conversation herself.

 _Talk to me_ , she begged internally.

“See you after lunch,” he called over his shoulder, walking away from her stricken self towards the locker room. She stood there, staring at his shrinking form, praying for him to turn around.

“Idiot,” she scolded herself once he was gone.

* * *

Nationals was a circus. A complete, three-ring, elephants-and-trapezes-and-popcorn-included circus. Between checking into the hotel, getting practice in and all the interviews with news agencies in, and seeing friends she only saw once a year, Clarke had barely had a moment to herself, much less a moment alone with Bellamy. She was still bursting with anticipation and dread of them having _the conversation_ , but with no spare time, an actual confrontation seemed unlikely.

Even though Abby yelled at them about their emotional constipation nearly hourly.

“Clarke, lean into his arms at that moment. It’s the only way to sell the dramatic shift,” Abby hollered from the sidelines of the practice rink in the Ice Center. Each team got thirty minutes on ice before their performance in competition that evening, but it was the only practice time they had the whole weekend, so they had to work both their short and long programs.

They had kept their _Atonement_ program, cut down to short-program length—Clarke was never so happy to get rid of that _Titanic_ outfit—with added elements and complexity to account for each of their growing strengths as a pair. She knocked the “doomed loves” trope of their pieces at the start, but they were starting to come in handy. It was easy to tap into the emotional strangulation of a performance if you yourself were fighting to express the romantic constipation of your skating partner.

“Got it,” Clarke called, doing as she was told with only the requisite amount of eye-rolling. Bellamy snorted, noticing her shade.

“And Bellamy, for Christ’s sake, stop holding her by your fingertips! If I have to superglue your palms onto her hips, I will,” Abby added.

Bellamy’s grin dropped. It was Clarke’s turn to smirk. It was one thing she was glad had never changed. They may have started hating each other, but they still sassed back and forth and were competitive as hell.

* * *

They killed it in short program. Or as close to killing it as they could accomplish when they weren’t fully speaking to each other. They landed in third after the short program, which was pretty incredible considering they only started skating together six months ago. But they were gunning for the win. Third wasn’t going to cut it, and if they had any chance of making it to the top of that podium, they needed to step up their game.

Which for Clarke meant they needed to deal with their emotional constipation. And that was only going to happen if this stalemate imploded. Clarke was sick of it. She had to be the one to strike first.

Later that evening, as she was heading to her room, she noticed Bellamy standing in the elevator foyer. He was nonchalant, hands in his pockets and skate bag over his shoulder, staring off into the distance and thinking about Roman elections, probably.

It made Clarke want to explode. How could he just stand there, when she was screaming out to him with her mind every single day? She stormed up to him.

“What the hell are you waiting for?” she asked.

Bellamy turned to her and blinked, caught by surprise. “The elevator?”

Clarke huffed, annoyed. “Not that, stupid. With us. What are you waiting for?”

He squared his shoulders, understanding. “I’m pretty sure you thoroughly dissuaded me from that the last time it came up. I have vivid memories of you verbally beating me back with a stick. And I’m not the kind of guy to push someone about it.”

“That was before I knew you and Gina broke up, you absolute moron,” Clarke shot back. “Thanks for that, by the way. I was the last person on planet Earth to find out. You’d think you’d want to tell me first, but no. I have to find out from Octavia and Gina two months later.”

“You avoided me like the plague right when it happened, Clarke. I know you were freaking about what happened in your room, but I could have told you what’s up if you would talk to me.”

“No-no, you don’t get to spin this back on me,” Clarke responded, poking him in the chest. “You’re the one who almost kissed me, broke up with his girlfriend and didn’t tell me, and then asked me out two months later thinking I’d say yes. I mean, honestly. What was going through that massively enigmatic brain of yours?”

At that moment the elevator nearest to them dinged and opened. They filed inside. After the doors closed Bellamy turned to her.

“I don’t know what I was thinking. I must have been scared. I don’t know.”

“But what are you going to do now?” she asked him. “Three days ago I shouted my feelings at you, and you’ve given me nothing. We can’t win Nationals this way. We need to be in sync.”

Bellamy threw his hands up and leaned against the wall. “That’s what this is about. It’s always about skating. One more competition as a pairs’ skate and you’re out of here. Remember that part of your big speech, Clarke? You may have started with your feelings, but you ended with the end of our skating careers. I got it then. I get it. I’m a prop in your plot for total skating domination. Tomorrow’s our last, and then we’re done. That’s what you said, right?”

Clarke didn’t know what to say to him. Her quitting had been in frustration, when seeing his face every day would hurt her like shots to the heart. “That’s different.”

“Why?” he challenged.

“It was before I knew you weren’t with her anymore. It hurt too much, Bell,” Clarke added.

“Why should who I date have any effect on our skating competitions?”

“I don’t know. It just does.” Yes, it was a coward’s answer. But she had already done the grand-declarations-of-love bit. It was his turn. She was petty that way.

“That’s a stupid answer,” Bellamy told her.

“Well, it’s a stupid question,” Clarke shot back. “If you don’t know why it affects this relationship, then you’re dumber than the ice we skate on.”

Because the universe was on her side, at that moment the elevator doors opened to their floor and Clarke was able to leave the elevator her head held high. She had laid everything out on the table for him, and he wasn’t giving anything up. So like a skilled negotiator, she walked away.

If she was being honest, she expected him to call out to her as she sashayed from the elevator. Beg her to turn around.

She expected him to grab her wrist as she exited and twirl her into a dip, kissing her soundly like in old movies.

She expected him to pick her up over his shoulder and carry her to his room. That may have been less based in reality and more in her continued fascination with his arms and the latent fantasy of being carried from a burning building like a wench in a Viking film, but it was just as unlikely as the other options, it turned out.

Any of her expectations were unlikely because he didn’t call after her. He made no motion to stop her as she exited the elevator, and Clarke kept walking. Down the hall and into her hotel room. The door hadn’t closed behind her before she was typing Raven’s name into her phone and hitting dial. She had barely had a moment to sit with her thoughts before Raven was knocking on her door—the virtue of close proximity during competitions.

“Girl you have got to get your shit together,” Raven told her as soon as she opened the door, not even bothering with a greeting.

“Rae—“

“No, no, no. This has been months. _Months_ , I tell you. You have literally exhausted all possible argument types and conversations,” Raven continued, spinning Clarke around and starting to dig through her suitcase. “That boy is _fine_ , and you’re not so bad yourself. You’re both single, and if my own God-given eyes are trustworthy, you’re both in love with each other. You have declared your love not once, but possibly twice. If there’s something to be done, you’ve done it. So put on your dancing pants and let’s go down to the bar. This debutante needs to shovel some food in her.”

“But Raven, I don’t want to.”

At that Raven threw a fun top and Clarke’s killer heels at her. “We must go.”

“Can’t we just stay in?” Clarke begged.

“Only if you order room service immediately. I have cravings and I will not be denied.”

“Fine. One order of fried pickles and mozzarella sticks coming up,” she declared, picking up the room phone and calling down the order.

Raven flopped on the bed and started scrolling through the movie channels, looking for something to watch. It was incredibly comforting, for some reason.

“I don’t deserve you,” Clarke said aloud.

“You’re damn right. Come on, cupcake, move your heiny. We have 90s movies to watch.”

* * *

The next day, Clarke was standing in the waiting area. She had no idea where Bellamy was. They were up in ten minutes, and she still hadn’t seen him. They warmed up like normal, and he had run off, begging a bathroom break or something. Now they were basically next, and he was nowhere to be found. Clarke was starting to get anxious. What the hell was he thinking?

“Clarke, stop fidgeting,” Abby scolded, standing next to her.

“Where is he?”

At that moment she turned toward the entrance, hoping upon hoping that he was about to appear. Like the cosmos had read her mind, there he was.

He looked damn good. Their long program went in their “Kiera Knightley” theme (at this point Clarke thought her mother was just messing with her), and was a medley of the _Pride and Prejudice_ soundtrack. It was really lovely and sweeping, and because they were Lizzie and Darcy, they were dressed like their counterparts. Clarke was wearing some empire-waist frilled design, meant to invoke one of the many gowns of the movie.

But Bellamy. This was just unfair. He was dressed in the dark pants, spats, and flowing open shirt of the end of the movie, popped-collar overcoat included. And at this very moment he was striding towards her, looking every bit the part he was about to play. Even in the indoor arena somehow his floppy hair was ruffling in an unfelt breeze. It was incredibly unfair. Clarke was going week at the knees as he approached.

“Bellamy, where have you—“

He cut her off. She should have been upset that he cut her off. In any normal situation between the two of them, him cutting her off would be the start of an argument. Particularly as she was about to chew him out for running off right before they were going to compete, Clarke was within her rights to rage without interruption.

But it was the way he cut her off. As she was beginning to argue during his approach, he wrapped his arms around her neck and waist. Before she could say another word, his lips were crushing down on hers.

It was like the floodgates opening. After the paralyzing shock wore off, Clarke threw her hands up to his face and returned his advance, dragging him down to her level as much as he was lifting her up. Chests pressed together, she could swear she could feel his heartbeat, racing just as much as hers. After a moment their lips parted, touching foreheads and breathing jaggedly.

“Clarke,” Bellamy started, moving one of his hands to her cheek. His voice had a ragged gravel to it that was giving her goosebumps. “You are absolutely batshit crazy. You’re completely nuts. You’re confusing and clever and ridiculous and I’m pretty sure I’ve never been more in love with a person than I am right now. I’m an idiot if I don’t recognize that.”

It was perfect. Exactly what Clarke had wanted, from the moment she realized it. The kiss was amazing, but the way he held her in his arms was even better. She was reminded of the way they had sat on her bed months ago, sharing each other’s breath and existing in sync with each other. She never, in a million years, thought she would coexist with someone so completely.

“Me too,” she replied.

“You’re an idiot?” he teased.

“Yes,” she answered with certainty. “I’m an idiot as much as I am crazy. And I’m in love with you too, moron.”

She reached her neck up to steal another kiss, electric. It was like kissing a nine-volt battery.

“Good,” he answered. “Because if this is the last time we skate together, I will go out of my mind. No one else gets to skate with you like we do. You’re perfect.”

“Even if I’m batshit crazy?”

“ _Especially because_ you’re batshit crazy,” Bellamy said, looking directly at her. “Don’t leave me. Please.”

It was unsettling to be under his focused gaze. Clarke felt like he was looking right through her, seeing all the broken pieces inside her. But it was also calming to be seen. He was seeing her, and still loved her anyway.

“Never,” she promised.

“Blake and Griffin?” someone over her shoulder called, and they were shocked out of their little bubble.

“Yeah?” Clarke turned to see Abby staring at them, a hint of a smile on her face, and a very flustered man with a headset and clipboard trying to get their attention.

“It’s time for you to take the ice,” headset guy stammered which only made Clarke smile.

“Ready?” she asked Bellamy, who only grinned in response.

They shucked their skate guards and handed them to a flummoxed Abby and amused Marcus before hopping onto the ice.

Suddenly she felt light. Clarke glided out on the ice with an ease she hadn’t felt in a long time. It felt amazing to just fly to center ice. It used to be her favorite place in the world, but life had pulled her away from it. Now, as she and Bellamy wrapped their arms around each other to assume their starting positions, she could feel it.

They were going to win. They were going to be flawless. Because together they were unstoppable.

“Ready, princess?” Bellamy murmured in her ear.

“Just try me, stick-boy,” Clarke laughed, taking a deep breath in and waiting for the start of the music.

The downbeat was the light tinkling of the piano, the arpeggio-driven opening piece from the movie. As dictated by their choreography, Clarke leaned over her shoulder to look at Bellamy. His smile was glowing, and it only gave her more confidence.

It had taken her forever to get back here, but she was finally where she was supposed to be again. And nothing could stop them now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all folks. I know this last chapter was a doozy. Thanks to everyone who's read this monstrosity, but especially my gal Lauren, who I write all my fanfic for. I hope this exceeded expectations.
> 
> Kudos & Review, y'all: they're more than discontinued granola bars and comedy showcases.


End file.
